


Star Wars: Awakening

by TheAntleredPolarBear



Series: Children of the Force [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mpreg, Multi, Pregnancy, Secret Relationship, Trans Kylo Ren, i guess?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23496526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAntleredPolarBear/pseuds/TheAntleredPolarBear
Summary: Ten years ago, Ben Organa-Solo became Kylo Ren, dedicating himself wholly to the First Order, and the Dark Side of the Force. A chance encounter with FN-2187, an exceptional stormtrooper, leads to a secret affair with great consequences, and the capture of ace pilot Poe Dameron offers a chance for both of them to break free.Fifteen years ago, Rey was left behind on the desolate planet Jakku, to eke out a meagre existence trading junk for food. When her world collides with the greater galaxy, she is thrown from her comfort zone into a battle between the First Order and the Resistance, between evil and good.Four people drawn together by fate and the Force, four lives that are about to collide. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Relationships: Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Children of the Force [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618333
Comments: 31
Kudos: 27





	1. Prologue: Leaving Home

Breha never wanted to go to the Jedi Academy. She never wanted to leave home at all. She was only ten years old, after all; she shouldn’t have to worry about packing up her whole life and moving away from everything she knew. At least, not without Mom. But that was the situation in which Breha Organa-Solo now found herself.

It wasn’t fair. She’d only Force-pushed Poe Dameron on the playground; it was pure chance that he’d fallen badly and broken his wrist. The two had even made friends afterwards. But Mom and Dad were acting as if she’d grabbed Poe’s hand and twisted it herself. If _he_ didn’t blame her, then why should they?

“Your uncle has been studying the Jedi arts since before you were born,” Mom had said, matter-of-factly, as she folded a hideous set of beige robes into a suitcase. “The Academy is the safest place for you to learn, and Luke is the best person to teach you.”

“You just want me out of the way in case I hurt someone else and make you look bad,” she’d retorted. Mom had bitten her lip as if she wanted to cry, and Breha had almost felt guilty.

“You’re going to the Academy, and that’s final.”

Breha had cried, and yelled, and begged, and bargained, but Mom would not be moved. She’d packed up Breha’s things, and put them on the Millennium Falcon, and kissed her goodbye without so much as a tear. Breha tried to convince her father next – they could run away, just them and Chewie, and Breha never had to use her Force powers again if he didn’t want her to. Dad gave her a little smile, but it very much was not the smile of someone considering an offer.

“I’m sorry, kiddo. But your mother’s right.” Chewie warbled in a sympathetic sort of way.

So, that was it.

Now Breha found herself in a strange little room, on a planet far from home, trying to resist the urge to cry. Each student at the Academy had their own modest little hut to sleep in, with wooden walls and domed ceilings. Breha hadn’t been inside any others, but she imagined they looked about the same. There was just enough room for a bed, a small shelf, and a little heater. Her suitcase was under the bed, full of all the clothes and books Mom had packed. Mom had probably packed up all the stuff she had back home too. She could use Breha’s room for whatever she wanted, now that Breha had pushed off out of it.

The thought of the empty bedroom, in the end, was the last straw. She brought her legs up to her chest, buried her face in her knees, and _sobbed_.

Presently, there came a knock at the door. As much as Breha hated the idea of anyone seeing her so upset, especially Uncle Luke, the promise of social contact was proving difficult to resist. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so _lonely_ before. Whoever was on the other side of the door knocked again, and this time, they spoke.

“Hello? Are you there?”

Well, that wasn’t Uncle Luke’s voice.

“Sorry, I’m coming.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and sniffed as quietly as possible, and prayed to whatever gods there were that the strange kid wouldn’t notice the puffy eyes or the redness in her cheeks. She took one more deep breath, and opened the door.

Well, Breha could honestly say she’d never met a creature quite like this before. They must have been close to two metres tall, with long, gangly limbs and broad shoulders, and almost all of their sizeable body was covered in fluffy white fur. They wore the same beige robes as all the other students, but theirs were sleeveless, and their feet were bare. Breha looked back up at their ruffed face just in time for them to speak.

“Hi.”

Breha furrowed her brow. “Hi?”

“Hi,” the kid said again. “You’re new.”

“I…yeah. I arrived this morning.”

“Oh, I thought so. I haven’t seen you before.”

Judging by the kid’s eyes, it didn’t seem like they saw much in general – the right pupil hadn’t stopped looking inward towards their nose – but then, maybe their eyes were meant to be like that. They held out an enormous fuzzy hand for her to shake. “I’m Seku, and this is the Jedi Academy. But you probably already knew that.”

She took the kid’s hand. The skin on their fingers was rough, and they had sharp, dark claws. “I’m Breha.”

“Breha,” they repeated. “I like that name. It’s pretty.”

Her insides squirmed uncomfortably, though she wasn’t sure exactly why. “Uhh, thanks. You wanna come in?”

Seku ducked under the doorway, the peaks of her mop of white hair brushing the frame. They ran the fingers of one hand through the fur on the opposite forearm. “I hope I’m not bothering you or anything,” they said, eventually. “I thought you might want some company on your first day. Besides, you were crying.”

Breha felt the cold fingers of shame grip her stomach, and Seku’s kind little smile only made her feel small and immature, however well-intentioned it was. “It’s okay. I cried a lot on my first day,” said Seku. “But part of that was because I ran into a wall.”

Breha snorted, in spite of herself, and immediately felt bad for finding Seku’s misfortune funny. She wanted to know about the wall incident, but thought it was something _she’d_ rather not relive, if it had happened to her. And she really didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. “I’m sorry.”

Seku, however, simply grinned at Breha, so widely her big, blue eyes almost squeezed shut. “It’s okay. It _was_ funny. I laughed too, once I got my breath back.”

But Breha’s fleeting mirth had evaporated, and she was left with the same hollow feeling in her stomach that she’d been wallowing in before Seku arrived. She shrugged, and perched back on the bed. It was so much smaller than her bed at home. “I’m just not good company right now,” she said, lamely.

“It’s okay.” Seku plonked down on the floor beside her, even though there was room on the bed for her. Maybe she was wary of personal space. “I’m not very good at small talk.”

“No, me neither.” A lot of small talk became big talk when you were the daughter of Princess Leia Organa and General Han Solo. But then, that wasn’t the problem. “I’m just sad.”

Seku’s pointed ears drooped. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not you.” Though Breha knew Seku was probably _sympathising_ rather than _apologising_ , she knew she’d like the reassurance if it was her. “It’s just…Mom and Dad are back home, and I know I’ve got Uncle Luke but he’s busy with everyone else. I haven’t got any friends here…”

“I’ll be your friend.” The way she said it, it was as if it was the simplest thing in the universe; Breha was a little taken aback by how quickly she said it. “I mean, if you want. We don’t have to be friends if you…”

“No, I’d like that. To be your friend, I mean.”

Seku seemed to take a second to process the information, but she soon gave Breha another huge grin, this one showing a set of sharp, white teeth. “Great! We should shake on it! That’s what you do when you make friends, right?”

It sounded oddly formal. Like it was a business transaction, rather than the beginning of a personal relationship, but Seku seemed genuine enough. She certainly didn’t strike Breha as the manipulative sort. So Breha held out a hand. Seku seized it almost tight enough to hurt, but not quite.

“It’s good to meet you, Breha,” she said, shaking the hand so hard that the bones in Breha’s arm almost rattled. That wasn’t business-like, for sure.

“Yeah. It’s nice to meet you too.” And she smiled. She really, genuinely smiled. Maybe being a Jedi wouldn’t be so bad after all.


	2. The Exercise

Nineteen years later, Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister First Order has risen from the ashes of the Galactic Empire, and will not rest until they have complete control over the galaxy. With the support of the New Galactic Republic, General Leia Organa leads a brave Resistance. She is desperate to find her brother and gain his help in restoring peace. However, the First Order have also set their sights on the last of the Jedi…

* * *

To the galaxy, he is known as Kylo Ren. Killer of Jedi, master of the Knights of Ren, apprentice to the great Supreme Leader Snoke. He is a cunning, ruthless warrior. His power in the Force is unequalled. He is single-minded, fiercely determined, an unrelenting force of nature with the sole purpose of subjugating those who would deny the power of the Dark Side.

Most of these things are lies.

Today, as Kylo Ren sits in his meditation chamber, he wonders if he has ever felt weaker. The room is sparsely furnished, and dimly lit, suited for its calming purpose. There is a leather chair, and a projection console, and a polished, black plinth. Atop this dark pedestal is the current object of Ren’s attention. The helmet has been mangled and dulled. The optical lenses have been smashed, the durasteel hull misshapen, the sections left of the mouthpiece jutting up like broken teeth. But it is not yet unrecognisable. This is the mask of Darth Vader.

Kylo Ren sits before the helmet, and bows his head to it. When he speaks, the reverence and shame in his voice are clear even through his own mask.

“Forgive me. I feel it again. The pull to the Light.” A lie. Even when he had felt most certain in his purpose, he had always felt the Light trying to draw him away from it. Each day the First Order comes closer to its goal, to subjugate the New Republic, and establish itself as the ultimate power in the galaxy. But each of those days, Kylo Ren had retired to his private quarters more uncertain, filled with more grief and regret for those the Order oppresses. Each of those days, he had found himself staring at the same helmet, pleading for the help that never comes.

“Show me again the power of the Dark Side, and I will let nothing stand in our way.”

Kylo Ren bows his head, and addresses the skeletal mask one final time.

“Grandfather. _Please_.”

His grandfather doesn’t answer him. Not any more.

* * *

There are any number of obstacles that stand in the way of the First Order, but there is one in particular that falls directly under the purview of Kylo Ren: Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi.

Kylo Ren has his own personal training quarters on Starkiller Base. The Supreme Leader had insisted on it. It wouldn’t do to have the Jedi Killer training alongside the lowly stormtroopers. He is far more important, far more powerful, and his inferiors must not be allowed to forget it. However, in his infinite wisdom, the Supreme Leader has granted him one exception. Kylo Ren will be strong enough to face the last Jedi when the time comes – the Supreme Leader has promised that – but the prospect of facing one of the most powerful warriors in the galaxy alone seems nothing short of suicidal. Captain Phasma had agreed with the assessment, and to provide the finest of her men, the most promising troopers, to receive personal training from Ren himself. He knows far better than anyone how a Jedi fights, after all.

When they do find Luke Skywalker, he’ll need the best, and he’ll need them to be prepared.

“Soldiers.” Phasma addresses her current selection of men, her voice clear and authoritative. A ripple of fear and excitement passes over the group. Three of them. A small, round pit of disappointment forms in his gut. He’d hoped there would be more. “You have been chosen to participate in this exercise to determine your potential as Jedi hunters. Be honoured. Most troopers will not have this opportunity. You have been selected because of your talent.”

Kylo Ren turns to face the assembly. The three troopers stand to attention, identical in their pristine betaplast armour. Identical in their apprehension. Captain Phasma’s impressive figure is plated in shiny silver armour. The chromium had been salvaged from a starship belonging to Emperor Palpatine himself. As if that wasn’t enough to distinguish her, a knee-length black cape hangs over one shoulder, bordered in bright red silk.

Reaching behind him, Kylo Ren takes the training saber from the shelf. It would stun them, if it made contact, but do no permanent damage. He’d wondered if either Hux or the Supreme Leader would take issue with that, but it seems no one wants to waste the best of their soldiers. Ren ignites the saber; the blade is dimmer than that of his normal lightsaber, and less volatile.

“You must not let the saber touch you. To touch the blade of a Jedi is to suffer death or injury.” Phasma conveniently excludes the fact that _this_ blade is harmless. “You will spar with Lord Ren. You will attempt to disarm him. Do you understand your objective?”

The three troopers state an identical affirmative.

Phasma’s gaze falls on the first trooper. “FN-1064, step forward.”

The trooper steps out of the line, and their baton crackles into life. Ren feels fear and panic radiating from them, so strong he almost expects to see it coming off them like steam. Eventually the pressure builds too much, and they make a panicked swing of the baton. Ren knocks the baton out of the way, and jab the saber into their side. The entire “fight” lasts less than fifteen seconds. _Pathetic_.

“FN-2199, step forward.” There’s a hint of disgust in Phasma’s voice.

The second trooper advances, their baton snapping into a reverse-grip position. Ren readies himself. Nine-nine jabs the weapon forwards, a strike easily avoided. They swing right, Ren parries with ease, and lunges forward. Nine-nine dodges, and the fight continues. They hold their own longer than Six-Four, but they are overzealous. They finally jab the baton towards him, lunging too far forward, and Ren brings the saber to their neck.

Nine-Nine collapses, stunned. They were too aggressive, too sloppy. But they have promise. With a little more training, more discipline…

“FN-2187, step forward.”

The third trooper steps up. Their hands are shaking, and their fear is strong, strong enough to raise the hair on Ren’s scalp. But their stance is bold and steady. They do not waver. Good.

They swing the baton right. Ren steps aside, with ease, and he parries the back swing, knocking the trooper off-balance. Eight-Seven quickly compensates, stepping into a defensive stance. Ren follows. Eight-Seven shifts their weight onto their back leg, and forces their other arm out. The baton follows, swirling wildly on the magnetic handle. Ren brings up the saber to deflect it. The baton misses by millimetres. And before he can make another move, something hits the small of his back. The sharp sting of electricity stabs the point of connection. He hits the mat. Hard.

The room falls into stunned silence. Ren looks up, searching for an explanation. It quickly becomes apparent. Eight-Seven had steadied the dull end of the faulty baton with their free hand, and rammed it into him. They stand utterly still, the baton raised at the end point of its path. Their helmet is blank, but Ren can sense their shock. They hadn’t expected to knock him down either.

It takes them a moment, but Eight-Seven manages to rouse themselves before Ren does. They drop the baton, and hold out their hand to him.

It should mean absolutely nothing. It’s a tiny gesture, a formality. It’s common practice, isn’t it, to help a sparring partner to their feet? But Kylo Ren is not a common man. He knows that. FN-2187 must know that. So what is this, a bid for attention? An attempt to distinguish themself? A mockery? But Kylo can sense nothing in the Force, no malice or cunning in FN-2187’s mind. Just an earnest desire to help, and now, confusion at Ren’s behaviour. Why would they think he needed help?

Why would they dare to offer it?

Captain Phasma’s voice breaks into his trance. “FN-2187, stand down.”

Eight-seven glances over their shoulder, but lingers, reluctant. Their hand haltingly withdraws, fingers closing in. Still prepared for Ren to take it. He still _could_.

“FN-2187, stand down!” And they snap back to attention. The hand closes in a fist, and goes back to their side, an offer rescinded. Kylo Ren looks at them now, and sees just a stormtrooper.

Only they’re not “just a stormtrooper.”

“Troopers, stand to attention.”

FN-2187 turns on their heel, and re-joins the line of troopers. The three return to formation, identical once again in stance and intention. That odd, kind stranger disappears back into conformity.

Kylo Ren gets to his feet, and retrieves the training saber from the floor.

“You may leave,” he says, flatly. He listens to them file out, footsteps in mechanical unison, and the door clamps shut behind them. He can sense their relief as they leave his presence, and Phasma’s lingering irritation, but his own mind is full of fog. He stands in the dull, grey training room, and wonders what vibrant thing had just happened.

* * *

Hidden away in the unknown regions of the galaxy is the planet once called Ilum. Torn away from its orbit, it sails through the empty darkness, the only clue to its existence the trail of disappeared spacecraft it has left in its wake. Parts of the surface look much the same way that they had for eons before; snow-covered plains giving way to thick pine forests, rising into craggy, grey peaks of rock in some places, and dipping into great valleys in others. But the world’s former beauty is far outweighed by the scars of its conversion. The mountains had been hollowed out, the glaciers eaten away for water and space, the living earth of the planet tunnelled into and turned outward for the First Order’s sinister purposes. Across the equator, the crust splits into a canyon hundreds of miles wide, and stretching down into the planet’s very core. And in this livid wound the Order has set their greatest weapon. Their killer of stars.

The durasteel halls of the base proper are often a flurry of activity. Officers rush to and fro, carrying everything from weaponry to intelligence, pairs of troopers march along their patrols, and droids weave between them all to their various destinations. The activity is hurried, but all carried out with military precision. Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma cut an impressive path through the bustle as they walk towards his quarters. A few of the officers that pass by turn their heads to stare at her, as though impressed or surprised she would dare to stand so close to him. Phasma ignores them all, of course, instead focussing entirely on her conversation. A conversation that Ren quickly realises he’s stopped listening to. He shakes himself mentally, and turns his attention back to her assessment of her progress.

“…early days yet, my lord. In the time you gave me before your first session, I could only assess a handful of training squadrons. I hope to find some more impressive soldiers in the future.”

Ren frowns behind the mask. It had been a tight deadline, but Skywalker could be located at any time, and he’ll accept none of their excuses. They must be prepared.

“I expect nothing but your finest, Captain.” A compliment and an ultimatum. It’s a task she can easily fulfil; she knows her army, and many of the best troopers are already under her direct command.

“You shall have them, of course, my lord.”

He almost ends the conversation there. It would be the sensible thing, but his curiosity is growing too intense to ignore. “What about that last trooper? Eight-Seven?” he asks, keeping his tone as non-committal as possible.

Phasma’s answer is clinical and matter-of-fact, but he can sense the frustration that she is masking with such expertise. “What you saw today is typical of FN-2187, my lord. He is talented, but he is soft. He insists on shielding other members of his team from the consequences of their failures. Frankly, if I had found more suitable troopers, I would not have brought him before you.”

Kylo Ren bristles, for a reason he can’t quite decipher. Captain Phasma knows the subject far better than he does, after all. And why should a Knight of Ren concern himself with defending the honour of a lowly stormtrooper? “He was the best of today’s selection, Captain,” he says, curtly.

“In the training room, my lord,” she argues. “I don’t have high hopes for his potential on a real battlefield, if he continues to display such behaviour. The First Order is only as strong as its weakest member.”

He can’t argue with that. The Supreme Leader had told him much the same thing, many times over the years. They reach the door of his quarters, and they both turn to face each other.

“Bring him to my quarters, tomorrow evening.” It’s out of his mouth before he even thinks about it. He can sense the captain’s incredulity beneath his reflection in her chromium-plated helmet. It’s lucky he can only see his own mask staring back at him, and not his mouth agape in surprise at his own nerve. He quickly adjusts himself. “Perhaps my approach may convince him to be more pragmatic.”

Her head cocks ever so slightly to the side, the barest suggestion of doubt. But she knows better than to question him. “Of course, my lord. I’ll have him brought from the mess hall immediately after dinner.”

Captain Phasma bows her head, respectfully. She turns and walks down the corridor, her red-bordered cape flowing behind her. Kylo Ren waits until she turns a corner, and opens the door to his own rooms.

He stands before his grandfather’s helmet. Darth Vader is unhelpfully silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, there's another chapter coming tomorrow on Revenge of the Fifth!


	3. Unmasking

“Which do you fear more, space or the ocean?”

Eight-Seven looks up from his meal of “synthsust” and cubed vegetables. Seven-One (FN-1971) is sitting across the table from him, dark eyes full of mischief. Eight-Seven smiles back, though he doesn’t have an answer. He’d never had particular thoughts about either of them.

“Ocean, definitely,” Slip (FN-2003) answers, from next to Eight-Seven. Apparently, they’ve thought about it more than he has. “Least nothing’s gonna eat you in space.” He punctuates his answer by taking a huge bite of his meat. Slip had developed a strong fear of being eaten alive ever since facing down a pair of simulated rathtars in a training session – he’d fallen behind, as usual, and they’d all discovered just how horrifyingly detailed a simulated death could be. He likes to joke about it, laugh it all off, but he has the bunk below Eight-Seven, and he can hear him tossing and turning in the night. Moaning about unseen horrors. “Weyw,” Slip continues, through his mouthful, “nuffin smolenuff ‘at yud no’ess.” A piece of meat flies out of his mouth, sails over the table and strikes Zeroes, sitting opposite them, on the cheek.

Zeroes (FN-2000) wrinkles his nose and wipes the synthsust and drool from his face with a scowl. “Another of your existential questions, Seven-One?”

“Come on, it’s just a bit of fun,” Seven-One replies, with a cheeky grin. “You’re not telling me that your brilliant mind can’t handle it, are you?”

“Of course not. Just that my brilliant mind would be better put to use in other ways.” Zeroes heaps a pile of synthsust onto his fork and spears a chunk of vegetable to accompany it. “Battle formations, for instance.”

Eight-Seven barely hears the last word over Seven-One’s groan. “Battle, battle, battle, that’s all you ever talk about. It’s all anybody ever talks about around here.”

“It is what we’re being trained for,” Eight-Seven offers up in his defence.

“That doesn’t mean it’s all we can _think_ about,” Seven-One argues. “Come on, humour me. You can’t just spend all your time thinking about training. You’ll burn out. Then you’ll be no good to anybody.” They give Zeroes’ arm a playful nudge, causing him to miss his mouth with his fork, smearing a line of sauce over one cheek.

“Would it be easier to push you out of a submarine or a starship?” he asks, bitterly, as he wipes his cheek for the second time in the conversation. Seven-One laughs, and after a moment or two, Zeroes’ face softens as well.

“Both’d be pretty hard to achieve without alerting your commanding officer,” Slip offers. “But space would offer you less resistance in the actual push, I think.”

“In that case, ocean,” Zeroes answers. “Although my worst fear is still getting stuck with you in a ship with no way out.” Slip throws back his head and roars with laughter.

“You should be taking your duties seriously, all of you.” The fifth person at the table, Nines (FN-2199), has obviously decided that they’re having too much fun, and that it’s his job to reign them in. As he is wont to do. “We have to be prepared, and vigilant. We could all be sent into battle at any time.”

“Well, all the more reason to have a bit of fun, then,” says Slip, with a shrug. “We could all be dead by next week.”

“Hey!”

“What? I’m not _wrong_.”

“Well, it’s rather…morbid, for the dinner table,” Eight-Seven replies.

“It’s a little morbid full stop, mate,” laughs Seven-One, clapping him hard on the shoulder. “But it’s there. Ain’t gonna go away just because you wanna eat your greens.”

Eight-Seven smiles at them, but he can’t deny the uneasy aspect that has fallen over the table. He looks at Seven-One. They used to sneak comic books into the barracks. Kade Genti, Master of Section Nine. They both would have been sent for reconditioning if they’d been caught, but Seven-One did it anyway. He thinks Zeroes’ constant exasperation, Nines’ stoic conformation to the rules. He thinks of Slip falling behind, or tripping, or getting caught. He can’t bear the thought of any one of them being gone, but it’s a thought that hangs over all of them. Constantly.

A voice barks across the mess hall. “Stormtroopers! Stand to attention!”

Every chair in the rooms slides back with a deafening cacophony of scraping. Every trooper stands to attention. Eight-Seven has but a second to wonder what’s going on, before Captain Phasma herself enters the hall, cape sweeping out to the side in her wake. She scans the hall full of troopers, of men and women she’s chiselled and honed into an army. And then, her gaze fixes on _him_.

Eight-Seven’s breath freezes in his mouth. He is suddenly all too conscious of how Slip felt when faced with a simulated rathtar. Only, this danger is not simulated; it is all too real, and coming ever closer. She stops about two feet from him.

“FN-2187.”

He wonders if he might scream as he opens his mouth to reply. “Yes, Captain.” He has to admit, he’s impressed with himself for sounding so calm.

“Lord Ren has requested your presence.”

Lord Ren? Oh, hell. Oh hell, oh _no_.

“V-very well, Captain.”

“FN-2187, fall in.”

His soldier’s training prevents him stealing a glance back to his friends, but maybe that’s for the best. He would hate for their last view of him, and his last view of them, to be full of such fear.

* * *

Kylo Ren stands in front of the desk in his bedchamber, alone but for the whispers of his troubled mind. He has spent much of the day in this state, simultaneously infuriated by his disquiet, and unable to let go of it. He should be above all of this. Nine years of the Supreme Leader’s training should have taught him better self-discipline. This endeavour is nothing but a distraction.

But he cannot banish the stormtrooper from his thoughts. He cannot forget the hand held out to him, and nothing behind it but an innocent desire to help. And he cannot be rid of this idiot curiosity until he can sate it.

The mechanical door slides open behind him, and two sets of perfectly in-sync footsteps march into the entrance chamber. Ren’s gut tenses anxiously.

“FN-2187, my lord.” Phasma’s voice is curt, professional, but he can still sense annoyance in her thoughts. Clearly, she too considers this trivial, at best.

“Very good, Captain.” He taps the desk in front of him. “Thank you. You may leave us.”

Phasma marches out of the door, and it slides shut behind her.

A long silence follows. There’s no noise but the humming of environmental controls, and the thudding of Kylo’s heartbeat in his ears. He can feel Eight-Seven’s fear mingling with his own.

He turns to face the trooper. “I’ve been looking over your records,” he says. He’d been looking over them on and off all day and night. He brings up the hologram, showing FN-2187’s personal history, training and examination scores, medical records…everything piece of raw data a commanding officer could wish to know about a stormtrooper. Not everything that Kylo Ren wants to know about FN-2187. He watches them over the three-dimensional images. Eight-Seven stands completely still, a figure of white plastoid and black, form-fitting fabric, visually indistinguishable from the thousands of other stormtroopers pacing the halls outside. It isn’t right somehow.

“Will you remove your helmet?” _Will you let me see your face?_

Eight-Seven lifts his hands to the sides of his helmet, and pulls it off.

He’s handsome. That’s the first thing Kylo can think of, and even that is less of a thought and more of a deduction, based on the way the breath catches in his own mouth. Dark brown skin, a strong jaw, a pair of soft, black eyes twinkling in the artificial light of the holographic display. His full lips tremble with nerves.

Kylo speaks again after a long moment. “You’ve scored in the top one percent of every evaluation. You are the best trooper in the FN Corps.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“And yet, Captain Phasma has concerns about your performance. Your compassion.” And that is what had so intrigued him. “You were the only trooper that managed to best me, and you offered me help. I want to know why.”

Eight-Seven blinks, shocked. “That’s what this is about?” he blurts, and immediately thinks better of it, because it looks like it’s taking all of his willpower to not clap his hands over his mouth. His eyes widen, his jaw clenches, and a very obvious drop of sweat trails lazily from his eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. Kylo Ren could very easily punish him for even this minor insubordination, but he has no interest in doing so.

“Do you have an answer?” he insists.

“I…” Eight-Seven shakes his head slightly, as if trying to wrap it around the strange situation before him. “It’s the done thing, sir. I knocked you down, so I should have helped you up. That’s what we do in training. My lord,” he adds, for good measure.

“You didn’t think that my position would change that?”

Eight-Seven considers this, carefully. “It didn’t cross my mind at the time, my lord. I apologise if I offended you.”

Kylo Ren turns his back, as if recoiling from a burn. His hands shake, almost imperceptibly, as he switches off the holographic display. He pulls his gloves loose, one finger at a time, and then slides them off completely. Pale flesh stark against the black, rough-hewn fabric of his sleeves. The desk is directly in front of him, but he dares to extend his arm to the side, to drop the gloves onto it. Would Eight-Seven notice the bare skin? The idea disgusts and thrills him in equal measure.

The gloves are just preamble. He lifts his bare hands to either side of his helmet. He unlatches the face plate, the sharp components leaving dents in the tips of his thumbs. The hinges swing automatically forward, released from their holdings, the unfiltered air of the room at large rushing into the gap underneath. And, insanely, he pulls the helmet off, setting it down on the desk. He takes one more, deep breath, and then, perhaps even more insanely, he turns to face Eight-Seven.

Eight-Seven remains stoic, outwardly. His presence in the Force betrays him; Kylo Ren feels surprise, confusion, curiosity…they all radiate from him, ripples on a still pond. But above all that, there is fear. Fear of what this all means. Fear of what may follow. If it were anyone else, he would not give it a second thought. He is far more powerful than they are, both in terms of strength and his position in the Order, and to be frightened of him is common sense, in his mind. But Eight-Seven’s expression does nothing to bolster him. It only serves to make him feel small, and guilty, as if he’d knocked a child over on a playing field. He does not want Eight-Seven to fear him.

He moves closer, with calm, slow steps he is not used to making. So much of the gentleness is gone from him now, but he hopes that his voice will contain what little of it is left.

“Don’t be afraid.”

The following seconds are filled with electric silence. The fear in the air is fading, and some new vibration is thrumming in its stead. Something Kylo can’t place.

“You can leave, if you want,” he says, softly. “I won’t stop you.” And truthfully, that’s exactly what he’s expecting Eight-Seven to do, to turn on his heel and run as fast as he can. He doesn’t.

“I don’t want to leave,” he says, instead.

“What _do_ you want?”

Eight-Seven’s eyes flick downwards. “This is crazy,” he says, more to himself than to anyone else, but before Kylo can ask, Eight-Seven closes the tiny space between them. Their noses clash, chests bump.

Lips press together.

Kylo freezes. He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t even thought. He has no idea what to do. He wracks his brains for anything that may help. He remembers lips pressed gently to his cheek, sunlight caught in strands of blonde hair, games played around a campfire. But those had been chaste little pecks, silly childhood affections. This is something different. Something strange and incredible. He has no framework for this.

Eight-Seven pulls back, draws in a sharp breath. And Kylo knows he hasn’t done this right.

“Oh, no. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…please don’t kill me.”

Kylo shakes his head. He takes Eight-Seven’s face in his hands, skin warm beneath his fingertips, and just a little tacky. The environmental controls don’t seem to account for how hot it must be underneath a helmet. And when he kisses Eight-Seven back, he can taste the sweat on those full lips.

Eight-Seven tenses, just for a moment, but then, wondrously, miraculously, he kisses back. He catches Kylo’s bottom lip between his own – he’s done this before. Maybe Kylo ought to feel jealous, but there is only relief. Eight-Seven will know what he’s doing. As if to confirm those suspicions, he places a gloved hand on Kylo’s jaw, and tilts his head to the side ever so slightly. Those gentle fingers ghost along his cheek. Oh, he wants to press into that touch. But he follows Eight-Seven’s lead. He feels as if he’s on a tightrope, as if one misstep could send him plummeting. One mistake could ruin everything.

A loud, harsh sound rents the air. Eight-Seven lets out a little yelp of surprise. Kylo Ren summons his lightsaber to his hand – _no, I_ won’t _let this happen!_ – but before he can ignite it, Eight-Seven does something remarkable. He starts to laugh.

“It’s me. It’s just me,” he chuckles. “There’s a communication system in the helmet. I think they want us back in the barracks for the night.”

So soon? “Do you have to go?”

“People might start asking questions. People are probably already asking questions,” Eight-Seven replies. He retrieves his helmet from the floor. He must have dropped it, at some point, though Kylo can’t say that he noticed. “If I’m late…I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t matter, if I’m with you. You could say you needed me for something.”

“No, you’re right. You should go.” He seems eager enough to get away. Maybe the surprise had caused him to lose his nerve, too. Kylo turns away, walks back to the desk, but he knows his own face has already betrayed his cowardice.

“Will I see you again?” Eight-Seven asks. His voice wobbles ever so slightly, but Kylo senses no fear. Only hope.

He looks over his shoulder. “Do you want to?”

Eight-Seven smiles – how long has it been since someone smiled at _Kylo Ren_ so kindly? – and nods his head. “I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

Kylo takes in a shaky breath. A steadying hand settles on his desk. He ought to say no. This weakness, this lapse in his resolve, this could be temporary. This could be forgotten, if he had the strength to let go of this distraction. He is apprentice to the most powerful being in the galaxy; he must be above temptation.

But then, he has already succumbed to it, hasn’t he?

“Tomorrow. I’ll send for you tomorrow.”

Eight-Seven smiles and nods again, dark eyes still sparkling in the dimmed, white lights overhead. “I’ll be here.”

* * *

The walk back to the barracks takes a little under ten minutes. Eight-Seven doesn’t pay much attention to it, because he doesn’t need to; part of stormtrooper training is to memorise the layout of the base, in case of emergencies, so Eight-Seven could probably navigate it in his sleep. Which is useful, because he feels as if he’s in a trance right now.

A scant hour ago, he’d been convinced he was going to die, or at the very least be sent to reconditioning. Now, he knows more about Lord Ren than any other stormtrooper on Starkiller Base. Maybe even any stormtrooper in the whole First Order. He has seen the face of Kylo Ren. Who else among them can say that? He’d looked so _ordinary_. It had caught Eight-Seven off-guard. He can’t think now what he had been expecting, but he knows that it wasn’t a pair of piercing brown eyes, set in a slender face, pale like a plant starved of sunlight. He really is just a person, underneath the mask and the robes and the vaguely threatening aura, and his humanity had put the rest of him into context. The power in his movements as he fights, the purpose with which he strides the halls of Starkiller Base, the inalienable mystery of him; things that Eight-Seven had noticed before, but somehow never connected to an identity. There are other things, too, things he _hadn’t_ noticed. There’s something tortured about him. Haunted, even. It had drawn Eight-Seven in. And he’d looked closely enough to see glimmers of more. Glimmers of light.

And they’d kissed! Kylo had warned him not to tell anyone, and Eight-Seven has no desire to incur the kind of punishment he’d get for doing so. “Fraternising” with a fellow stormtrooper is cause for reconditioning, not that they all haven’t done it anyway. Kissing Kylo Ren would probably get him thrown out of an exhaust port somewhere. But then again, would it matter if he did talk? Who would believe him? Eight-Seven can scarcely believe it himself.

He doesn’t realise that he’s back in the barracks until he’s practically tackled off of his feet, which yanks him unceremoniously out of his thoughts and back to the present. “Eight-Seven!” Slip pulls back from the hug and holds him at arm’s length, concern written into every square inch of his face. “Stars, we thought Phasma would kill you. What was that all about?”

“Private training session with Lord Ren.” He’s surprised at how easily the lie trips off of his tongue. He takes off his helmet, and sets it down on the foot of his bunk. “Jedi mind tricks, you know? He wanted to see if I could resist them.”

“He didn’t ask me,” says Nines, bitterly.

“You didn’t kick Kylo Ren’s _ass_ ,” Seven-One retorts, and swings their legs off their bunk. “So, how’d you do? Did he get in your head?”

In a way, Eight-Seven supposes he had. “Yeah, a little. I think he’s going easy on me at first.”

Zeroes raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Going easy? I didn’t think he had that setting.”

Eight-Seven shrugs. “He must really want his Jedi hunters.”

Slip hugs him tight again. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I think we’d be lost without you.”

“Speak for yourself, Slip,” Nines scoffs, and turns over to try to sleep.

Seven-One scowls at his back. “Let’s hope you get up on the right side of that bed tomorrow, Nines.”

Nines simply grunts in response.

“I think I’m gonna get some rest,” says Eight-Seven, lamely. “I’m tired, after all that…mind-reading.”

The others continue to chatter as he diligently removes his armour, piece by bone-white piece. It must be the shock, but their small talk seems so meaningless to him now. There is a world outside, outside of troop movements and examinations and simulated rathtars, a world he was never meant to experience. He’d had glimpses of it, in those daft Kade Genti comics and smuggled contraband and secret touches in the darkness. Shadows on a cave wall. He’d dreamed all his life about running away, to be beholden to nobody but himself.

He places his armour in a neat arrangement at the foot of the bottom bunk. He can still feel the ghost of full lips across his own, the echo of pale fingertips tracing his cheekbones. Maybe this is a part of it, too, this other life that is forbidden to him. Who would have thought it would come from Kylo Ren?

He strips down to his underwear, and climbs up the ladder into his bunk. It will be lights out soon. The others pass “goodnights” and “sleep wells” between each other, with the notable exception of Nines. Slip pushes a foot into the small of his back through the springs and mattress, briefly drawing him out of his reverie.

“Night, Eight-Seven,” he says.

“Night.” Eight-Seven, lost in thought, just stares up at the light fixture, and traces the never-ending circle with his eyes until the afterimage overtakes his vision, and he barely notices when it finally goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back to having updates as and when, I fear. I hope you enjoyed the double event!


	4. The Scavenger

Midday. As the sun over Jakku reaches the peak of its arc, each resident of the desert planet – animal, droid and sentient being alike – scrambles for shelter from the heat. The air-conditioned taverns of Cratertown and Reestkii fill to the brim, people crowd beneath the awnings of the Niima Outpost, and creatures and junkers retreat into shady hidey-holes. Across the open wilds of the planet, there is little but sand thrown by the winds to break the stillness.

Out in the wastelands, the gargantuan corpses of downed starships rise from the dunes. The locals call it the Graveyard of Giants, and few of them will ever stray there. There are too many dangers to count, and there are few sights to recommend it. Everything silent, still, and rounded, other than the jagged, metallic crests of the ships. Too old and large to ever be moved or used, they will lie in the desert for millennia before they decay. But there is treasure here too, for those who are brave enough to seek it out.

In the gaping, hollowed cavern of one engine thruster, there sits a lone figure. The beige of her robes leaves her almost indistinguishable from the rolling sands; if not for her movement, she might well be invisible. She carries a long staff, a small water canteen, a grappling hook and rope, and a brown cloth satchel, currently bulging full. She wears a cloth mask to protect her face. Sheltered from the sun, she searches the inside walls of the thruster for components left behind. No such luck. Anything useful and portable had long been stripped away from the easily reachable parts of the ship. Still, she had already liberated a respectable amount of scrap from the ship’s interior. All that is left to do is clean her spoils of dust and grime, and sell them on, and that can wait until the worst heat of the day has passed. She has earned a break from her toil.

She pulls the cloth mask down, revealing a sun-tanned, freckled face, with a round jaw and piercing, russet eyes, streaked with sand and dirt. This is the face of the girl called Rey.

When the sun has sunk a little, and the rushing wind takes on a slight, yet distinct chill, Rey shoulders her bag and picks her way towards the outside. The interior of the ship is perilous. A great hole has opened up in the side of the hull, but the sunlight filtering in does little to penetrate the darkness inside. She chooses her footfalls carefully, lest she slip and cut herself. Even a small injury can be deadly in this desert.

She steps out into the daylight, blinking as her eyes adjust to the change. A flat piece of sheet metal sits nearby, on a relatively flat area of sand, and she loads her cargo onto the makeshift sled. A few forward shuffles later, and she’s sliding off down the dune. It had been fun, once upon a time, but these days it’s nothing more than ordinary. Once she reaches the bottom of the dune, she hops off of the sled, and drags it over to her boxy, rust-coloured speeder. She’d built it herself, over several years, from parts she’d scavenged from the Starship Graveyard, or traded from the Teedo that roam all over the planet. She has no need to secure it. There is a code of honour among the scavengers that patrol the wastelands. It’s not uncommon for people to take gathered salvage from one another – Rey had done it a handful of times, when she had been desperate enough to risk confrontation – but to steal another’s possessions is something akin to sacrilege. If you were caught stealing from someone, you were at their mercy.

Rey unloads her cargo of scrap into a rope net strapped to the side of her speeder. She hauls herself into the seat. The controls have a fingerprint scanner that allows her, and only her, to activate the engine. It’s old technology, and relatively slow. The junk traders would have little desire for it, but it’s a fun little feature. The speeder’s old thrusters roar into life with the familiar smell of hot, old metal and burning fuel. She pulls her goggles and mask back on, and revs the engine. She moves off slowly, but quickly gathers speed. She flies across the salt flats, throwing up clouds of dust and sand in her wake, wind whipping at her exposed shoulders, hands and calves.

The Niima Outpost is less than a half hour’s ride away. As Rey steers the speeder up and over an unidentifiable piece of hull, several thin trails of smoke become visible on the horizon. She adjusts her trajectory, and ups the speed, until the speeder engine rattles precariously underneath her. She lets it chug for as long as she dares.

* * *

The Niima Outpost is a small collection of tents, awnings and ramshackle buildings, bordered on one side by a large landing area, and on the other by a smaller, roped-off square meant for parking smaller craft. Despite its small population, and lacklustre appearance, the Outpost is a bustle of activity. People carry cargo back and forth, while the calls of merchants plying their wares ring out from inside the main marquee. One might think that such a remote and destitute place is completely lawless, but there is a small Outpost Militia patrolling between the tents and stalls, watching for any sign of thievery. Every so often, a criminal is dragged away to the constable’s office, but Constable Zuvio is a fair man and would rather set a desperate pickpocket back on their feet. Malice and violence, however, are dealt with swiftly and decisively. There is little room for error out here.

Rey slows, and slots her speeder into a space between two other, battered swoops. Rey takes her pack out of the rope net, back bent under the weight of the salvage inside. She trudges towards another smaller awning, with several work tables set up underneath. Nobody offers to help her. They all have their own burdens to carry.

She sets the bag in the sand beside a work bench. Appearance means little on Jakku, but it always pays to make sure an outside observer can determine the function of a piece of scrap without too much trouble, and that means cleaning off the worst of the dirt and grime. She grabs a clean cloth sitting on the workbench. The work is dull, but at least it’s not too strenuous. There’s something almost therapeutic about it, in fact, as if the buffing and polishing away of these imperfections might somehow translate to oneself.

As Rey picks and polishes the scrap, she separates it out into three piles. One is for cast-offs, the pieces that had looked promising when she collected them, but are actually useless or degraded beyond any functionality; however selective she is in her scavenging, this pile is nearly always the largest. The next is for pieces that she needs for maintenance on her speeder and other tech. The final pile is made up of the scrap she intends to trade today.

Unkar Plutt holds the junk trade on Jakku in one horrible, bloated fist. If you want to barter, you have to go to him, or one of the many associates he has scattered over the planet’s surface. If anybody dared to make an unauthorised trade, well, they had best hope that he never found out. Even the militia won’t help you then. Unkar’s monopoly has granted him wealth beyond the comprehension of most Jakku natives, but, ironically, so too has it ruined his life. He can go nowhere, and do nothing, just sit in his tiny “concession stand,” behind a barred window, and trade his precious salvage. His cruelty has guaranteed that to step outside would be to condemn himself to death. The scavengers would tear him to pieces.

For now, Plutt is the only source of food and payment for hundreds of miles around. Rey watches his stubby fingers pick through her offerings, occasionally holding a piece up to the light to examine it closer. Eventually, he grunts dismissively, and bends to take something from under the counter.

“What you’ve brought me today is worth…” He stops to ponder it another moment. “One quarter portion.”

Rey’s heart falls, as she watches Plutt’s hand come down, depositing a small split bag of blue polystarch crystals and vitamin supplements on the counter. One single, tiny bag. “Last week, you would have given me twice as much,” she protests. She knows it to be futile. Unkar Plutt is as unmoveable in business as he is in body.

As if on cue, he shrugs one lumpy shoulder. “Things change, girl. Now move, you’re holding up the line.”

With that, she knows the conversation is over. Still, she spares Plutt a scowl as she snatches up the plastic bag. So fixed is her gaze on the bulbous face of her tormentor, that she bumps into another scavenger further down the queue. She is old, and wizened; Rey has seen her around the Outpost before, and always avoided her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, hurriedly. She bends to help the old woman gather up her scrap, and her young, slender fingers look so strange next to the other’s gnarled and wrinkled hands. Several of her fingers are missing nails.

“Not to worry, dear. No harm done.” The old woman stands straight – well, as straight as she can, as her back is hunched with age – and leans a little closer to Rey’s ear. “He’s a stingy old bastard, isn’t he? He’s been that way since before you started gathering.” She puts her hands over Rey’s own, even as Rey is holding her bag of scrap. “But he isn’t tough like we are.”

Rey smiles, in spite of any discomfort. The old woman releases her grip, and reaches for the bag of junk instead. “Oh, but listen to me. I’m sure you’ve better things to do than listen to my nonsense.”

“Not really,” Rey answers, and she hands the bag over. “See you again?”

“Oh, I hope so, dear,” the woman says, and shuffles forward with the line. Rey walks off to her own destination. She can feel Plutt’s eyes boring into the back of her head as she walks hurriedly away.

* * *

The wind blows from the east, and the sun hangs in the west, as Rey speeds across the vast and empty expanse of sand towards home. The Graveyard of Giants may be far away, but the landscape is still dotted with the corpses of smaller crafts, and sections of Star Destroyer hulls long stripped of anything useful. Even in their obsolescence, they still serve a purpose, providing shade and shelter for those that roam the desert. An old, battered AT-AT lies prostrate on a flatter area of sand, legs splayed out and half-buried, just where it had been for countless years. A hole has opened up in the belly of the walker, and it is inside the tilted troop quarters that Rey has made her home.

Over the years, Rey has amassed a collection of trinkets to brighten up the space. She’d resisted at first, believing her time on Jakku would be a short one, but as the months mounted into years, she’d realised she was stuck. A dusky pink flower sits in an old metal drinking cup. A battered doll made of old bandages and orange fabric, dressed to look like a Rebel Alliance pilot, sits slumped in the corner of the hollowed-out fuse box that forms the anchor to one end of her hammock. A pretty embroidered pillow she’d found in a Star Destroyer rests on the hammock itself. Strung about the room are useless charms rescued from the cockpits of downed starfighters, hung by their original owners for good fortune that hadn’t come.

One wall is purposefully bare. Rey takes a small tool, one not unlike a scalpel, and scratches a tally mark into the rusted steel. Each one represents one day spent on Jakku, alone under the burning sun, eking out an existence from portion to portion. There are thousands of them. She wonders how many there will be when she’s as old as the woman from the Outpost.

The day marked, she sets about making dinner. The portion added to water to transform it into bread, and the vitamin cubes make a simple meal, but she has something else, something really special: meat from a bloggin bird she’d caught and killed. She can’t place the last time she’d had real meat, but she does remember that it was good.

She sits outside to eat. The sun’s light is stained a pleasant shade of orange, and its warmth has subsided enough to let the breeze cool the air. The meal is so much more filling than her usual fare, but it still leaves an empty pit in her stomach, a hunger than she can never assuage. She can’t remember the last time she wasn’t hungry. She licks the last morsels from her tin plate, until there is nothing left. Nothing wasted. In the distance, a lone starship rises into the air, turning north, away from her. Rey watches it until it disappears beyond the horizon.

* * *

The next day. The sun over Jakku reaches the peak of its arc, the air-conditioned taverns of Cratertown and Reestkii fill to the brim, people crowd beneath the awnings of the Niima Outpost, and creatures and junkers retreat into shady hidey-holes. In the gaping, hollowed cavern of one engine thruster, Rey shoulders her bag, full once again of rusted scrap, and picks her way towards the blinding light of the outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, sorry about the late update on this one. With everything going on, I thought it was a little insensitive to post a new chapter and draw attention away from the more important things happening in the world. I was planning to post the chapter tomorrow, but then I realised tomorrow was Juneteenth, and that seems even more insensitive. So you get a chapter now. Hooray! 
> 
> I'm working hard on the next chapters, so hopefully they'll be ready a bit sooner. Hope you enjoy!


	5. Interlude: Desperation

General Leia Organa is alone.

Well, that’s a lie. She’s surrounded by people. The members of her growing Resistance bustle about like hectic bees around their queen. The underground control centre is alive with the chatter of officers and the binary chirps of droids. They rush past with cordial greetings as she walks the corridor, lost in thought. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that she _feels_ alone. The kind of alone that only comes when the person you need the most is nowhere to be found. And she needs her brother now, more than ever.

She wonders, sometimes, if he’s even still alive at all. He could have been killed that night at the Jedi Academy, for all she knew. They’d never found his body, but then, Jedi Masters don’t always leave bodies behind. Each time she reminds herself, no. She would have felt it, just as she felt him call out to her all those years ago on Cloud City. He’s still out there, somewhere. But then, why hasn’t he come back? He must know what has happened, what’s been going on. At the very least, he must know that Ben is lost. What could be more important than his family?

Recently, there had come a whisper. A tiny spark of hope. From a distant, near-empty planet, a voice had spoken from Leia’s past. He had contacted her personally to tell her he’d discovered a map, a map to the birthplace of the Jedi Order. He may hold the key to finding Luke. He may even hold the key to reaching her _son_. All she has to do is retrieve it.

She knows the perfect man for the job.

Leia reaches her office door, and finds her pilot already waiting outside. She’d known Poe since he was little more than a glimmer of joy in his mother’s eyes. Shara Bey had been assigned as Leia’s personal pilot after the Battle of Yavin, and the two women had quickly become friends. Shara’s homeworld of Yavin IV had been a welcome retreat in the fledgling days of the New Republic. Leia has fond memories of two dark-haired children playing and whooping in the jungle rain, while their four parents watched on, proud but sensibly cautious.

The last time Leia had been to Yavin IV was for Shara’s funeral. She’d never found the time after that.

Poe Dameron is a grown man now. He is the image of his father, but Leia can still see Shara’s echo in the way he carries himself, the certainty in his deep-set eyes.

“You asked for me, General Organa?” he says, politely.

Leia punches in the keycode to open her office door, and gestures for him to enter. It’s a modest office, but she’d found something rather satisfying in downsizing. There’s a simple durasteel desk, and shelves full of various datapads and journals, and even a few books. Real paper and leather books. Closer to the door, there are a couple of comfortable chairs, with a small end table between them.

“Please, sit down, Captain Dameron.” He perches on the edge of the chair closest the door, as though expecting her to order him up again at any moment. Leia sits in the other chair. She still isn’t sure if she finds them comfortable or not. “How are you?” she asks.

“Fine,” he replies. “I got the cast off my arm this morning. Marvy…Doctor Tua gave me the all clear to fly again.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Poe looks away, rolls his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip. “I’m angry, General. That last mission…you know about the last mission,” he adds, to himself.

“I do.” It was intended to be a diplomatic expedition, with Black Squadron accompanying a lightly-armed star yacht to the Hevurion System. Erudo Ro-Kiintor, the Hevurion senator, had extended a proverbial olive branch after he’d drawn criticism from his constituents and other senators alike for a series of unpopular decisions. Many suspected him of being sympathetic to the First Order.

Oh, they didn’t know how right they were.

“That senator, Ro-Kiintor, he was working _with_ them,” Poe growls, finishing Leia’s train of thought. “He was a traitor to the Republic. And he was a senator! How many more like him are there?”

Leia shakes her head. There are many like Ro-Kiintor, more than she can count. Some are elected on a platform of bringing the greatness and prosperity of the Empire back to their systems, others with promises of great boons that should not be shared with outsiders. Bigots of all kinds, playing on their audience’s fears of the unknown and longing for structure and security. Ro-Kiintor may be dead, but his supporters, his citizens, live on. And now their figurehead has become a martyr.

“The Republic is full of people like him, Poe,” Leia says, finally. “We learned from the Rebellion that we _can’t_ beat them, not completely. That’s not why we’re fighting. We’re fighting to make sure that the First Order doesn’t win either. If they want to bring back the days of the Empire, we aren’t going to make it easy for them.”

She watches the young man’s face, carefully, analysing his reaction. She’s seen many people have this realisation. Too many. The New Republic, that shiny bastion of equality and justice, is rotting from the inside, and has been maybe since its founding.

Poe takes a moment to process this information. But he takes a deep breath, and nods resolutely, and if Leia wasn’t sure he was the right man for the mission before, she certainly is now.

“What is it you need me to do, general?” he asks.

Leia smiles, and stands. She moves to one of the bookshelves, eyes fixed on a chunky, older datapad, replaying some rather dull Kaminoan cruiser evacuation protocols. It’s absolutely meaningless to her. She’d chosen it specifically _because_ it was meaningless. She lifts it off of the shelf, revealing a small safe built into the wall. She keys in the six-digit access code. The safe contains a single item.

“We gathered a lot of information from the Hevurion mission, despite its unfortunate outcome.” She turns back to Poe, and moves to retake her seat opposite him. “Several of Ro-Kiintor’s employees have defected to the Resistance in the chaos since his death. We’ve drawn attention from other places as well. I’ve been contacted by…an old associate of mine. I need you to find him, and bring him here. At the very least, find out what he has to say.”

She hands Poe the item from the safe. It’s a small datachip, made of steel and scratched blue plastoid. He considers it, and looks back to her for explanation.

“His name is Lor San Tekka. He’s on the planet Jakku, and knows how to find my brother.”


	6. Imposition and Invention

It’s been six months, since the sparring match.

For six months, Kylo Ren and FN-2187 have been meeting in secrecy. It began with “training sessions” after dinner, every few days. Eight-Seven would finish his meal quickly, and make the short trip to Kylo Ren’s private quarters, and the pair would fill the brief minutes before Eight-Seven had to return to the barracks with quiet conversation and pleasant touches. Kylo rarely spoke of himself, at least at first, but he’d sometimes comment on the things Eight-Seven said. (He remembered Kade Genti, too; he used to read the comics with a friend he didn’t name). After a few weeks, Kylo had been able to secure longer meetings. Sometimes Eight-Seven would bring his dinner to Kylo’s quarters, and they would eat together. Kylo never ate as much as Eight-Seven, and he’d often let the latter hoover up the leftovers from his tray. Other days, Kylo would arrange for them to train together, in his private training rooms, of course. They would spar or wrestle, for as long as they could stand it before they collapsed into smiles and soft kisses.

Kylo never bared his teeth on the rare occasions that he smiled. Once he almost had, the tiniest sliver of white flashing between his lips. But he’d caught himself, it seemed. He’d forced his lips tightly closed. Like he was ashamed.

The Jedi-hunter training has also continued, with mixed success. Six-Four had been unceremoniously dropped from the training program, and replaced with Seven-One, much to Nines’ chagrin. Progress is slow, but the trainees are improving, in both technique and confidence. Nobody had been able to replicate Eight-Seven’s victory, not even Eight-Seven himself. Perhaps it really had been a stroke of pure luck that he’d been able to floor Kylo Ren. Perhaps it had been something more important.

They’d been happy, or so Eight-Seven thought. He hadn’t been truly content, but he couldn’t be, not here. This life isn’t his, just something he was choked and forced and sculpted into before he could understand why. But Eight-Seven had thought that he and Kylo had found some joy together. He’d thought they were building something, amidst the swathe of destruction that the First Order was cutting through the galaxy.

Maybe he’d been wrong. Kylo hasn’t spoken to him in weeks.

* * *

Today is unusual. Today, there’s something strange hanging over _everyone_ , an unspoken tension. The higher-ups give their orders with voices a little sharper than usual, their eyes stained with a fear their expressions mask. Their anxiety is passed down through their subordinates, and the subordinates of the subordinates, and by the time it reaches the troops, no one has any idea what they’re afraid of. Which, of course, only makes it worse.

Eight-Seven takes a mouthful of water from the metal fountain in the corner of the training room, fresh from sparring with a particularly aggravated Nines. The stormtrooper training rooms are far plainer than those of Kylo Ren, but no less equipped. The floors are cushioned, and the walls are adorned with various blasters and cannons – none capable of more than stunning. Some of them are enormous, used for drills and simulations involving entire battalions, up to four-hundred strong. Then there are the simulation rooms, with sophisticated holographic displays playing out situations indistinguishable from real life; these are even bigger, to accommodate for the huge and complex environments generated for training.

The room in which Eight-Seven currently stands is much more modestly proportioned. There are four of them inside, and they fit comfortably, but perhaps a little snugly. Zeroes and Slip have stepped up to spar with their regulation vibro-daggers. Each stormtrooper is assigned one early in their training, since it’s a useful alternative to a blaster that could be deactivated, or simply run out of ammunition. Eight-Seven watches the flashes of their colliding blades.

The door slides open to his right. The four already in the room stand to attention automatically – it could be a superior officer – but instead, a lone stormtrooper enters. Seven-One.

Slip, clueless as ever, gives them a big, stupid grin. “Oh, hello! What brings you here?”

Seven-One pulls off their helmet, and looks around at the others in pure, blank shock. The smile drains from Slip’s face. “Oh, man, something’s up, isn’t it?”

Seven-One can only nod. Their mouth opens and closes several times, as though what they have to say is too terrible to put into words. Eight-Seven puts a hand on their arm, and even though they can’t possibly feel it through their armour, it seems to give them enough comfort to finally restore their voice.

“The Supreme Leader is here.”

Eight-Seven’s heart seems to freeze in place. Nines shakes his head, and his voice is full of the kind of reverence that only comes from all-consuming fear. “But he never comes to Starkiller Base. He _never_ treads upon the frozen ground.”

“There must be something _big_ going on,” Zeroes says, solemnly.

Eight-Seven can certainly think of something important enough to bring the Supreme Leader here.

“I need to go.” He grabs his helmet from its place on the bench, and shoves it back onto his head. He doesn’t need the biofeedback readouts to know his heart is beating much too fast.

“Go where?” Slip asks, but his question goes ignored. Eight-Seven punches the controls for the training room door. “Eight-Seven, go _where_?” he hears, before it clamps shut behind him.

Forget the unexplained silence, he needs to get to Kylo. He needs to know that he’s safe. He walks as fast as he can without breaking into a run. He’s already drawing looks with his speed, and the panicked edge to his breathing; he doesn’t want to bring more attention to himself by completely breaking protocol and running through the halls. Then again, if he’s right, it won’t matter if the whole First Order follows him. Finally, Eight-Seven reaches his destination. He looks around, furtively, and presses the intercom button outside Kylo’s quarters.

The door opens, but Kylo is not there. Eight-Seven steps gingerly into the room, and the door slides closed behind him. The entrance chamber feels even emptier with just him inside it. “Kylo?” he calls, softly. The helmet muffles his voice too much, and he pulls it off, setting it on one of the consoles. “Kylo? Are you here?”

_Stars, please let it be him that opened the door._

The ‘fresher door slides open, and there he is. His Kylo. Eight-Seven can’t help but smile at the sight of him. But his hair is dishevelled, a sheen of sweat covers his face, and a little bile trails from the corner of his mouth. Eight-Seven takes hurried steps closer until he can wrap his arms around Kylo. He’s as rigid as a statue. When Eight-Seven pulls back, Kylo is still staring blankly ahead, not really seeing anything at all.

“You threw up?” Kylo just nods, lifts his arms to Eight-Seven’s waist. He bows his head, like he wants to press their foreheads together, but thinks better of it at the last second. “What happened? Are you sick?”

“I…no. I don’t think so.”

His lips are still stained with bile – stars, Eight-Seven wishes he had something to wipe that away – so Eight-Seven presses a kiss to his forehead instead, tastes the salt of his brow. Kylo manages a little smile, despite the state he’s in. Eight-Seven has never seen him so shaken. It looks as though he’s using all his willpower to stop himself throwing up again. “You can tell me,” says Eight-Seven, his voice quiet and calm. He runs his gloved fingers along Kylo’s jawline. “Please tell me.”

Kylo takes a deep, shaking breath. “I’m pregnant.”

The bottom of Eight-Seven’s stomach seems to fall away. Every square inch of his skin tingles, as though bathed in static. His thoughts scatter to the winds. His hands start to shake. It can’t be true. It’s impossible, isn’t it?

“I thought…you said that you couldn’t…” His mouth is so dry that the words rasp almost painfully against it. _Why did you say you couldn’t get pregnant?_ That’s what he really wants to say. _Why the hell would you say that if there was any possible chance…?_

“I thought I couldn’t. I was _told_ I couldn’t. I never would have…”

He finally meets Eight-Seven’s gaze, and his eyes are full of terror, and sorrow…and shock. He’s just as surprised as Eight-Seven. Eight-Seven pulls Kylo’s head down to rest on his shoulder, and folds the rest of him into his arms. Of course, Kylo had been truthful. He wouldn’t lie to him about that. Eight-Seven can’t remember Kylo lying to him at all. He has his secrets, but then, doesn’t everyone?

“That’s why you were distancing yourself.” It’s a statement, not a question. “What are we going to do?”

Kylo’s hands are shaking when he runs his fingers over Eight-Seven’s face. Eyes full of fear and pain and a terrible, terrible resignation.

“You have to run.”

Eight-Seven stares at him. “What? No! No, I can’t…”

Kylo pushes past him, seizing the edge of the desk, as if for support. Eight-Seven reaches out to touch him. But with a howl of rage, Kylo slams the desk against the wall. Eight-Seven jerks backward. The desk topples onto its side, scattering papers across the floor. Kylo’s helmet lands absurdly amidst the chaos with a dull clunk. Unsatisfied, he paces to the bed inlet, then back to the wall, restless, a beast in an ever-shrinking cage. “If the Supreme Leader finds out…the Supreme Leader _will_ find out. He’ll find out and he’ll kill you. Or worse, he’ll make me…” Hair tangled, eyes wide with fear and rage, face streaked with bile and tears; he looks _crazed_. “You have to go. You have to get as far away as you can.”

Eight-Seven can only stare for a moment. _You could do it, you know. Leave him behind. It would be_ so _much easier._

He shakes the _sickening_ thought from his mind. “No. I’m not going _anywhere_ without you. I love you. Kylo, I _love_ you.”

He cringes, internally. He’d pictured saying that so many times over these last few weeks, in so many ways, and none of them had been so… _forceful_. There is no relief in Kylo’s eyes. He looks at Eight-Seven with a horrible pleading, and an even worse desperation. Before Eight-Seven can say anything, Kylo’s gaze snaps past him, towards the door.

Eight-Seven flies backwards towards the wall, and stops but a hair’s breadth shy of colliding with it. He can’t move, he can’t speak, he can barely even breathe. His thoughts race in his head. _This is it. This is it. He’s going to kill me._

He can just about hear the door to Kylo’s quarters whirr open, above the sounds of his own panicked breathing, and the sharp, clipped tones of General Hux comes from beyond Eight-Seven’s line of sight.

“Lord Ren, the Supreme Leader expects us in the Throne Hall,” Hux says, waspishly. Eight-Seven can picture his perpetually disgusted sneer. Suddenly, he is very glad he cannot move. “Do clean yourself up,” Hux continues. “It reflects badly on both of us if you’re a mess.” He doesn’t wait for a response before he closes the door again.

Eight-Seven feels the force holding him abate. He drops back onto his feet, and leans on his own knees, trying to find his balance against the abrupt and dizzying change.

“I wish you’d warned me before you did that,” he says, breathlessly. He moves a steadying hand to rest on the wall behind him, so he can stand up straighter. “Kylo?”

But Kylo seems to have fallen back into a state of terrified shock. He stares, unseeingly, at the closed door, as though expecting half the First Order’s army to burst through it. Eight-Seven steps gently closer to him, and pulls off one of his gloves. When he’s met with no resistance, he lays one hand on Kylo’s shoulder, and with the glove he gently wipes the vomit from Kylo’s lips. As much as he can, with the plasticky blend of the fabric, and the square piece of armour meant to protect the back of Eight-Seven’s hand. It’s not a perfect job, but at least the worst of it is cleaned up.

“I couldn’t let him see you. I’m sorry.”

“I know. You just frightened me, that’s all.” Being held still for a few moments is a prospect immeasurably preferable to reconditioning, even if it had been terrifying at first. “I’m okay.”

Kylo seems to heave a sigh of relief. He looks down at the soiled garment clutched in Eight-Seven’s hand. “Your glove.”

“They get ripped and stained all the time. I’ll get a new one from laundry. They won’t think anything of it.” Eight-Seven’s heart flutters, even as his soldier’s instincts, and the stormtrooper inside him, are taking over. “Listen, you have to go to the Supreme Leader. I have to go back to work. We get through the next few hours, we act normal, and then we come back here and we can talk. We’ll figure out what to do.”

He expects Kylo to argue – why should the Supreme Leader’s chosen take instruction from a lowly stormtrooper? – but instead, he nods. Eight-Seven lets out a sigh of relief, and kisses the other’s cheek.

He retrieves Kylo’s helmet from the floor, and hands it to him. “Go on. They’re expecting you. Don’t worry about me.”

Kylo nods. “Wait as long as you can to leave.”

* * *

He’d felt it the moment it had happened. A few nights after the one he and Eight-Seven had spent together, he’d felt a little flicker in the Force, a butterfly’s wingbeat. Somehow, he’d known exactly what it meant. He’d hoped, _prayed_ , that he’d been mistaken, even as the proof mounted before him. He’d barely slept for weeks, food started to turn his stomach. Everything aches. His clothes are already hugging him a little tighter, or maybe that’s just his imagination. His denial had driven him to isolation, to cut himself off, as much as that was possible.

Eight-Seven had come to him. Kylo had more or less abandoned him, and he had come anyway. Kylo had seen his face, and known he couldn’t lie. Not any more. Not to Eight-Seven, and not to himself. Kylo Ren, the fearsome war dog of the First Order, is with child. The absurdity is only outweighed by his terror.

The Supreme Leader must know. There are no secrets Kylo can keep from him. He has no idea what will happen to him. He has never made a mistake of such severity before, and it is the most terrible of mistakes. He owes the Supreme Leader _everything_. He’d repaid all of his master's generosity and patience with _this_. His punishment will be unimaginable. And well-deserved.

Hux is already waiting for him beside the elevator to the throne room. He checks his watch, pointedly, but Kylo has no room to feel even annoyance at the gesture. His presence scares Kylo. Usually Snoke’s punishments have no audience.

“Do you know why the Supreme Leader has called us?” Kylo asks, before he can think better of it.

Hux half-shrugs. “I’ve no idea. I would have thought you’d know more. You are his apprentice, after all.”

Kylo can’t think of an answer to that, so he stays quiet.

A bell signals the arrival of the elevator. Kylo hesitates for barely a moment, but it’s enough for Hux to notice. He can feel Hux’s analytical gaze, even with his own eyes fixed straight ahead of him.

The elevator door slides open, and there he is. Supreme Leader Snoke.

In all the years that Kylo has heard him, all the years that Snoke’s consciousness has laid like a blanket upon his own, he can never prepare himself for the rare event of seeing his master in person. He is an awful sight to behold, even in holograms, but his physical presence is orders of magnitude worse. Kylo wishes he could turn and run. Wishes he had the courage. Instead, his legs carry him automatically forward to stand before the throne, and his knees bend in terrified capitulation.

Silence falls over the room, broken only by the sounds of the Supreme Leader’s laboured breathing.

“You may stand.”

The two men rise, mechanically. Kylo keeps his gaze locked on a join in the floor, and waits for the inevitable to strike. Only, it doesn’t.

“General Hux. Lord Ren. We have reached a pivotal moment. The coming days, and your actions in them, will bring about our victory, or will doom us to failure.”

He pauses, his sharp, pale eyes searching every inch of the pair before him. Kylo avoids his gaze. As if that would help him.

“My spies have uncovered valuable information, on the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker.”

Fresh fear coils in Kylo’s gut. All the years of preparation have done nothing to dull the terror that the Jedi Master inspires. He has no idea if he’s ready. His master has given him no indication. The stormtroopers he’s been training _certainly_ aren’t ready. If they find Skywalker now, Kylo will have to face him alone.

“There is a map,” Snoke continues. “Hidden, for many years, but if I have heard of it, I will not be the only one. If the Resistance is allowed to retrieve it, they will find Skywalker, and the new Jedi will rise. That cannot be allowed to happen.”

Hux speaks. Kylo is always surprised by how little he seems to fear their leader. “Supreme Leader, the Resistance is outnumbered and outgunned. They would be foolish to attempt to stop us.”

Snoke bristles at this insolence, his anger vibrating through the Force. “Do not underestimate them, General. The Resistance may be few in number, but they have powerful allies.” Hux nods, but his lip curls defiantly.

“The map is being held on Jakku, by Lor San Tekka. Another voice from your past.” The Supreme Leader’s eyes fall on Kylo Ren, and he withers. “I have had the _Finalizer_ prepared. Take your _Jedi hunters_ ,” he says, derisively. “Perhaps you can convince me of their prowess.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke waves his hand, dismissively. “Now go.”

Kylo’s heart leaps up into his mouth. He doesn’t know. _He doesn’t know._

He fights to keep himself calm, as he turns from his master and walks towards the elevator. He barely notices Hux’s look of irritated confusion. His mind is racing too fast; his heart hammers so violently that it might leave a bruise. FN-2187 is safe, for now. Kylo still has his master’s trust. They have a chance to get away.

Fierce pain builds in his throat. The Supreme Leader had found him in his darkest hour, had moulded him into the man he is today. Without his guidance, Kylo would be nothing. Less than nothing. He owes _everything_ to the Supreme Leader, and now he plans to repay that invaluable gift with ultimate betrayal. Just considering the idea is enough to make his insides ache with guilt. But what place is there for him and Eight-Seven in the First Order? What place is there for a child?

There is an answer to that question, but not one he’s ever liked.

The mission to Jakku is unavoidable. He cannot disobey such a direct order, not without giving away every secret he holds. But Eight-Seven will be with him. Kylo can watch over him, and protect him. He will complete this final task for his Supreme Leader, and then, he can be finished.

He can be free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise if this chapter is a little rough around the edges, but I wanted to get it finished before I go away on holiday this week. I'll still be working on the fic, of course. Thanks for sticking with me, and if you spotted anything that needs changing, please let me know. I hope you all had a wonderful summer!


	7. Man Against Fire

Night on Jakku is as different to the day as…well, night and day. Countless stars scattered across the dome of the sky twinkle benevolently down at the planet’s surface, set against a backdrop of distant gases casting milky light through the heavens. The surface of the planet is not peaceful in the dark, however. With the sun no longer forcing them to shelter, and many of the planet’s creatures fast asleep, the local nocturnal fauna emerge from their dens to forage, or to hunt. Their calls rent the crisp air as they go about their business. It’s cold enough for the hardy desert flowers to protectively fold away their petals, lest they fall victim to frost. The brittle leaves of tuanulberry bushes, with no such defence, rattle in the breeze.

The village of Tuanul sits cradled in the Kelvin Ravine. At first glance, it appears that there is very little, if anything, to recommend it. A collection of simple huts that appear to be made of clay sit around a barely-functional water pumping system. Poe Dameron thinks it’s _brilliant_. It’s peaceful and remote, and the perfect place to hide the most important secret in the galaxy. The spectacular view of the night sky is a bonus beyond value. Though he still isn’t sure if the berry bush is named after the village, or if it’s the other way around.

Lor San Tekka appears to have been made leader of Tuanul somewhere along the line. He has the grandest hut of the village, though that isn’t saying much. He spreads apart the curtain of beads strung at its entrance, and steps inside, leaving Poe to catch them on the backs of his own hands as he follows. The hut is lit by a small fire pit in its centre, with candles flickering in the places the firelight won’t reach. He walks to a chest in the corner, gesturing to a rough-looking wooden chair. Poe eagerly takes the opportunity to rest.

“The galaxy has been in turmoil for decades,” Tekka says. He’s old – at least eighty – but underneath the withering effects of age and harsh living, Poe can see the wandering adventurer that starred in his father’s bedtime stories. Tekka finds what he is looking for, and stands straight. He regards the object in his hand for a moment. “These days I can only do so much, and there is so, so much to be done…”

He trails off, and Poe wonders if he’s expecting a reply. “You’re doing the Resistance a great service today, sir,” he says, confidently. “The general has been waiting for this for a long time.”

Lor San Tekka smiles. “The general,” he chuckles, almost to himself. “To me, she’s _royalty_.”

The pouch he hands to Poe is tiny and completely ordinary. It’s brown and chapped, with a zig-zag of orange thread holding the two pieces of leather together. To the untrained eye, it would appear completely insignificant. Poe knows better. This is the most important little thing in the universe. His fingers close around it, and he hopes he can keep it as safe as it looks right now.

“I have travelled too far, and seen too much, to ignore such suffering in the galaxy. I hope that this will begin to make things right.”

Poe meets his gaze. “It will. I’ll make sure it will.”

The beads in the doorway fly apart with a clatter. Poe half-rises, hand reaching for his blaster, but a series of familiar chirps calm his nerves instantly. The little droid has a spherical body, orange and white, atop which sits a rounded head with a big, black photoreceptor and a signal antenna.

“Beebee-Eight! What is it, buddy?”

She lets out a shrill beep of alarm. That can only mean one thing. “It’s the First Order. They’ve found me.”

Lor San Tekka pushes himself to his feet, with impressive speed for a man of his years. “You need to leave. Now.”

“Wait, no, I can’t let you…”

Tekka stops Poe’s tracks and his voice with a firm hand on his shoulder. “You must get that map to the Resistance. There is far more at stake than Tuanul.” Poe grimaces – how is he supposed to just leave these people? – but he knows that Tekka is right.

So he runs. He sprints through the village as it comes to life around him. Beebee-Eight keeps pace with her pilot. The first troop transport lands with tumultuous clanks and thuds, and the door swings down, vomiting stormtroopers onto the sand. There must be a few dozen of them, at least, and the transport is only one of three. The villagers are outnumbered and outgunned. They are not, however, preparing to go gently into any goodnight. They emerge from their huts with pistols and rotary blaster cannons, each weapon old but very much functional. The air ignites with flashes of red and icy blue.

Poe races for his X-Wing. He’d landed it as close as he dared to a rocky outcropping, and so far, it had done a decent job of hiding his craft from eye view. Those transports will have sophisticated sensory equipment, however, and Poe knows his own craft won’t be hidden for much longer. If he can just get it in the air, he can get away, and maybe take out a few bucket-heads in the process.

He reaches the X-Wing, and hefts himself into the cockpit. Beebee-Eight rolls into the co-piloting position. The lights in the cabin come on as Poe flicks switches, stabs at the right sequence of buttons. The engine rumbles to life underneath him. He pulls on his helmet, and…

BOOM!

The craft shakes violently. Heat and fire erupt from behind him. Alarms blare, displays flash red. “No, _no_!” he yells, but his protests do nothing to change the facts. The engines have been blasted. He’s grounded.

Beebee-Eight babbles a warning from the co-pilot socket. Two stormtroopers, likely the culprits of the destruction, are advancing towards them with blasters raised. “I see ‘em!” He rotates the laser cannons and fires on them, sending them flying back in a great cloud of sand. They won’t be the only ones.

Poe climbs out of the disabled X-Wing, retrieving his blaster rifle as he does. He buries his face in his elbow to protect him from the smoke. From what he can see of the engine, it is well and truly obliterated. Even if he could get it home, it could never be repaired. There’s no flying out of this one.

He kneels beside the droid, and she responds with a worried little babble.

“You take this,” he says, fumbling with the little leather pouch. The datachip inside slides perfectly into Beebee-Eight’s multi-reader slot, as if she was fated to carry it. “Take this, and get as far away from here as you can. Quickly!”

Beebee-Eight protests, shaking her head. _What about you?_

“I’ll be fine. I’ll come back for you.” Neither one of them fully believes it, but it’s all he can offer. “I’ll take out as many of those bucket-heads as I can. Now, go!”

Poe raises his blaster, and runs off, back towards the smoking battlefield. He fires a few shots at the approaching crowd of stormtroopers, hitting one, maybe two. Beebee-Eight watches him for a moment longer, whines a mournful little whine of goodbye. Then she turns and speeds off into the night.

* * *

If FN-2187 has ever been more scared in his life, he can’t remember when.

The lights in the transport flicker, and the craft shudders as it enters Jakku’s atmosphere. The vibration reverberates up through Eight-Seven’s bones. The nineteen other troopers in the passenger hold jostle, just a little, finding their feet once again after the sudden movement. Slip, standing straight in front of him, wobbles a little more than the rest before righting himself.

Eight-Seven barely notices Slip’s stumble, absorbed in his own thoughts, his own fear. His whole world seems to be collapsing and re-forming around him. He needs to concentrate, to focus on the battle he’s heading inexorably towards, but his mind refuses to co-operate with him. It sticks on Kylo, on the bombshell he’d dropped on Eight-Seven, on the unavoidable question of what the hell they’re going to do. He’d had no time to process anything before the FN Corps had been called up to action. And now they’re hurtling towards planetfall, and Eight-Seven isn’t even _close_ to ready.

The transport jolts again, and Eight-Seven’s mind finally falls quiet. They’ve landed. The door cracks open from the top. Light leaks in, white and harsh, beams spreading across the ceiling. The transport lands with one final, almighty quake. There is no pause, no time to regain his footing, before the door drops open, and the squadron surges forward into chaos.

Blue and red bolts flash in the air like lightning; the rumbling of engines forms the requisite thunder. Eight-Seven is dazed, adrift. The world is moving too fast for him to make sense of it. A lieutenant shouts orders that are lost in the noise and fury. Someone somewhere screams in agony. A large explosion to his right launches a pair of troopers into the air. He follows Slip.

But Slip disappears.

Eight-Seven staggers to a halt, as if some invisible rope pulling him onwards had snapped. Where had he gone? How could he have just disappeared? He had barely even _blinked_.

Eight-Seven looks down. Of course Slip hadn’t vanished. He’d fallen. He must have tripped over something; how many times had he done that in training? But no, something’s wrong. He lies, half-propped against a low mud wall, a smouldering wound torn in his armour, looking at the blood on his fingers as if confused how it got there. Eight-Seven drops to his knees beside him. _Are you okay?_ he wants to say. _Where are you hurt?_ But he knows it wouldn’t matter even if Slip could speak. There’s too much blood, splattering uselessly into the sand. Slip raises a hand, as if to hold Eight-Seven’s face, but his strength gives out, and his fingers run uselessly down the other’s helmet. His body gives one last convulsion and then falls still.

Conversely, impossibly, the world seems to slow down, almost to a stop. Even the sounds of the battlefield fade away; all he can hear is his heartbeat rumbling in his ears. Slip’s dead. Slip’s _dead_. Eight-Seven doesn’t know what to do. He can’t just _leave_ him.

A rough hand seizes him under one arm, yanking him upwards. Eight-Seven starts, but his eyes fall on silver durasteel. Captain Phasma herself pulls him roughly to his feet, the reflections of lights and flames shimmering in her silver armour.

“Get moving!” she shouts, shoving Eight-Seven forward. He knows her blaster is at his back. He almost trips, but instead he runs, his own blaster raised, but with no finger on the trigger.

The battle is quickly starting to wind down. Many of the villagers have been herded towards a small water tower. It strikes Eight-Seven that there are no children. Flametroopers send torrents of fire raging through what’s left of the huts, and he hopes to the stars there are no people left inside. Even through the filters in his mask, he can taste the smoke heavy in the air. Animals fleeing the battle race about his feet. The sound is indescribable.

And there is Kylo Ren, striding through the dust and smoke towards the assembled crowd.

His appearance signals the end of the fight. Even the few villagers that had still been struggling immediately cower. All are forced to kneel. Looking at the dark figure advancing on them, face a soulless mask, thrown into stark shadow from the light of the flames and floodlights, Eight-Seven can understand why. If he didn’t know the man beneath the robes and the mask, he would be terrified too. Hell, he’s a little bit terrified even so.

Kylo pauses, and turns to stare directly at him.

Eight-Seven meets his gaze, stunned. He has to bite his lip shut. There are so many things he wants to say, so many questions he needs answered. But something takes hold of him, something he instinctively knows to come from Kylo. A wave of calm crashes onto him, against the fear and shock and grief filling him up. It works, at least a little. He feels as if he can breathe again.

“We found him, sir.”

Kylo turns to the source of the voice, breaking the spell. Eight-Seven’s gaze follows. Two stormtroopers step forward, shoving an elderly man in front of them at gunpoint. Eight-Seven knows that he must be important, to be so fiercely defended, but he can’t stop himself from thinking: _That’s who all this is about? That’s Lor San Tekka?_

Kylo stands still and silent for a moment. He may not be moving, but somehow Eight-Seven knows that he’s examining Tekka with fierce scrutiny. Finally, he speaks. “Look how old you’ve become.”

The old man isn’t surprised by Kylo Ren’s apparent familiarity with him. Instead, when he looks upon the other’s mask, there is only sadness in his watery, blue eyes. “A far worse thing has happened to you.”

Kylo seems to ignore this judgement. “You know what I’ve come for,” he says.

“I know what you come _from_ ,” Tekka retorts. Kylo freezes, like an animal caught in the gaze of some unseen predator. Or indeed, an animal waiting for just the right moment to pounce. Tekka speaks again, undeterred. “The First Order rose from the dark side. You did not. You do not belong with them.”

Kylo Ren ignites his saber, and holds it close to Tekka’s neck, close enough for the old man’s rough-spun clothes to start to singe.

“Tell me where the map is, or I will order my men to kill yours.”

A ripple of hushed noises passes through the crowd, something Captain Phasma would call poor discipline. But these are not soldiers, Eight-Seven reminds himself, as his stomach seems to shrink to a tenth of its original size. These are just _people_. Nobody panics, however. None of them scream, or cry, or try to run. Tekka sets his jaw, draws himself to his full height. He does not look intimidating, but instead, exudes an air of dignity. “We are not afraid to die.”

They stare each other down. Maybe they each truly believe the other will renege. Eight-Seven can tell that they won’t. The red saber burns bright as Kylo draws it sharply back.

A burst of blue light flashes in the distance. Eight-Seven almost shouts. Kylo throws up a hand, fingers spread outwards. The blaster bolt – he hadn’t even fully registered that it is a blaster bolt – freezes in its path. It hovers there, vibrating with energy, the smell of burning ozone filling the cold air.

Eight-Seven takes off towards the source of the bolt. At the edge of its circle of light, a figure is frozen in an unnatural position, as if caught stumbling backwards. Eight-Seven grabs the blaster out of the stranger’s hand. He seizes the stranger under one arm, a second trooper grabs him by the other, and they pull him towards the village. The blaster bolt is still hanging in mid-air; the stranger cranes his neck to look at it as they pass. Eight-Seven gives his arm a yank, vicious enough to surprise himself. He’s _angry_. The shock had fogged all emotion, but now he feels it, biting at his stomach. _How dare you try to hurt him?_

Lor San Tekka may have been stoic in the face of Kylo Ren, but when he sees the stranger dragged out of the darkness, the look he wears is one of utter horror. Kylo connects the dots as fast as Eight-Seven does. “The old man gave it to you,” he says. “Search him.”

The other trooper wastes no time in roughly patting the stranger down. Eight-Seven hesitates, for the briefest of moments. The anger has drained out of him, like water disappearing into the sand beneath his feet. But he takes the arm and leg on his side. He finds a small cartridge of spare ammo for the rifle, which he confiscates, stowing it in a compartment on his belt. Other than that, his side is clear.

“Just spare ammunition, sir,” he says. The word feels wrong in his mouth.

The other trooper holds out a small leather pouch. “Just this, sir. It’s empty.”

Kylo takes the pouch, turns it over and over in his gloved hands. It looks completely ordinary, but Kylo must find some significance in it, because his head snaps in the stranger’s direction. “What have you done with it?”

The stranger is unyielding. “The Resistance will not be intimidated by you.”

Kylo watches the stranger a moment longer, before he jerks his head to the side. “Take Tekka and the pilot to the shuttle. I’ll interrogate them aboard the _Finalizer_.”

Tekka and his escorts are the first to move. He doesn’t struggle, but he does turn his head to follow Captain Phasma as she approaches. Her armour, caked in dust and ash, has lost its shine. Eight-Seven manages to catch most of their conversation as he leads the stranger to the command shuttle.

“Sir,” she says, a little breathlessly. “My men are searching the village. Your orders?”

Kylo is silent for much longer than Eight-Seven would like. “They don’t have what we came for,” he says, finally. “Finish searching the village, and leave them.”

Phasma’s head twitches. “Sir…”

He rounds on her. The frozen blaster bolt moves with him. It hits the water tower, showering the villagers below with sparks and moisture. “You have my orders, captain. Follow them.”

As Eight-Seven steps up into the shuttle’s cabin, the tactical part of his mind begins to re-assert itself. He and Kylo need to escape the First Order. He’s known that for a long time, even before there was a kid in the picture. And now…now he’s holding on to the arm of _a Resistance pilot_. His stomach leaps up into his throat. He’s holding their ticket to freedom. He just has to figure out how to use it.

* * *

Beebee-Eight races through the desert. Creatures unknown and unseen call out as she passes. She has no light by which to navigate, other than that of the moon. She doesn’t know where she would go anyway. She knows nothing about this planet at all. She runs anyway, because Poe told her to run, and for all she knows, it was the last order he ever gave.

She obeys him. It’s in her programming, after all. But before the lights of the burning village disappear beyond the horizon, Beebee-Eight turns to look back, just in time to see the First Order transports fade away into the twinkling sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the long wait. I've been distracted by some family dramas. And Animal Crossing, but that's less excusable. The next chapter is coming along well enough, though, so hopefully there won't be such a delay. I hope you enjoyed!


	8. TIE Hard

The _Finalizer_ is the newest addition to the First Order’s expansive navy fleet. It hangs in orbit above Jakku, casting an ominous silhouette against the planet below. Three prongs protrude at right angles from the tip of the bow, a facsimile of a tri-bladed lightsaber. The message is a clear one: this is the flagship of Kylo Ren.

Poe Dameron struggles against his bindings as the shadow of the Star Destroyer darkens the internal cabin of the shuttle. He doesn’t have anywhere to run to, of course, but he’s sending a little message of his own. There may be several tens of thousands of them aboard that ship, and only one of him, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to kowtow to them. He’s not going to be their obedient little prisoner.

The transport judders, presumably passing through a shield barrier, and then lands with a final jolt. The engine whines into silence. The ramp lowers in front of him, and the stormtrooper on his left, the one with a death grip on his arm, shunts him forward. Poe staggers out into the hangar bay and… _wow_.

Poe knows the First Order has friends in high places, but he hadn’t expected them to be _this_ well-equipped. There must be a hundred craft in this hangar alone.

Poe is taken to a holding cell: a dark room with nothing inside except some kind of upright gurney. One trooper takes off Poe’s handcuffs, and before Poe can even _think_ about doing something, they punch him in the face. _Hard_. He falls to the floor, mouth filling with blood. The pair of troopers seize handfuls of his jacket and haul him up, grumbling as if he’s the one in the wrong, and they manhandle him onto the gurney. Shackles come down on Poe’s wrists, forearms and legs. He is well and truly secured.

With an exasperated huff, he flops back against the gurney. The people in the village have been left alone, at least for now. Lor San Tekka was still alive when they were both brought aboard the ship. The map is with Beebee-Eight, and Poe has no idea where she is. But neither, by extension, will the First Order. Even if they torture him, even if Kylo Ren searches every dark little corner of his mind, none of them can extract from him something he doesn’t know. He’s gotten out of worse situations than this, after all. He can’t think of any right now, but he’s sure he’ll remember something.

Eventually, the door to the cell slides open, and there stands Kylo Ren.

Even in the comparatively mundane setting, Ren is an imposing figure. Shrouded entirely in black, hooded and masked, his appearance serves to enhance his malevolent aspect. Something hangs in the air about him, a sinister aura setting Poe’s teeth on edge. Ren is accompanied by a single stormtrooper. Poe can see specks of blood clinging to their helmet; the trooper that had cradled a fallen comrade as they died. _The guy you shot_ , he reminds himself, swallowing the worried lump that rises in his throat. Perhaps they have come seeking revenge.

“Leave us,” Ren says, sternly. The troopers flanking Poe salute, and march from the cell, the door sliding shut behind them.

A heavy silence hangs in the room. Kylo Ren and the anonymous stormtrooper approach the gurney, masked faces fixed on their prisoner as if appraising him. Poe Dameron scowls defiantly back. “So who talks first?” he says. “Shall I talk first?”

The trooper glances back at the door, and pulls off their helmet. _Well, that’s weird._

“Listen, I don’t know how much time we have.” The trooper turns to Ren, grabs his hand – that’s even weirder – and then turns back to Poe. “We want you to help us get out of here.”

That’s the weirdest thing yet.

Poe blinks, as his brain tries to process the glut of information it had received in the last few seconds. His mind stutters with each attempt; it’s as if he’s trying to start up a frozen engine. Finally, he gets himself together enough to stammer an “I…what are you…what?”

“It’s simple,” Ren says, which Poe considers a flat-out lie. “We need to escape. You need to escape. We can help each other.”

Poe glowers at his masked captor, caught between anger, defiance and absolute confusion. “What was that? It’s very hard to hear you with all the, y’know. _Apparatus_.”

The trooper looks up at Kylo Ren, and appears to do a double-take. “Kylo, take your helmet off.”

Ren tilts his head, and looks at the insurgent trooper. “I would prefer not to.”

“I…okay, fine, it doesn’t matter. I’ll talk.” He holds up his free hand in a placating gesture. “We need to leave, and soon. We’ll help you if you’ll help us.”

Poe frowns at them both, before his gaze settles on the stormtrooper. “What’s your name?” he asks, ashamed that he hadn’t thought about it until now. Then again, he does have a lot of other things on his mind.

“FN-2187.”

Poe blinks. “Pardon?”

“FN-2187,” says FN-2187. “That’s the only name they ever gave me.”

Poe fixes Kylo Ren with another withering look. “He doesn’t have a real _name_.” At least Ren has the decency to appear ashamed of himself, turning his face downward, as if looking at the floor. Then again, it’s impossible to really know with the mask.

FN-2187, though? That isn’t right. “FN, huh?” he muses, and the trooper nods an affirmation. “FN… _Finn_. How’s that for a name? Finn.”

A silent, wide-eyed look is the trooper’s first response, but his face quickly splits into a beam. “Finn! I like that.” He turns to Kylo Ren, and says again, “I like that.”

Poe has no idea what Ren’s face looks like behind the mask, but he notices Ren squeeze the trooper’s hand. He turns to address Poe directly. “Do we have a deal?”

Well, it’s not as if he has options.

“Fine,” he says, curtly. And then, startling himself with his own boldness, he adds, “but I’m taking you to the Resistance. They can handle you.”

He isn’t expecting Ren to agree. He’s in no position to make demands, after all. Ren glances at the trooper again, and inclines his head. “Very well,” he replies, darkly. Poe blinks in surprise. Ren must really want to get out of here.

Poe tries hard not to think about what they might be running from.

* * *

Six months. One hundred and eighty-two more scratches on the wall.

Rey hadn’t scavenged that day. She’d been startled awake some time before dawn by an almighty explosion, and rushed outside to see the lights of several ships rising into the sky, from somewhere beyond the horizon. Clouds of smoke from the ground below had been visible even in the darkness, blocking out the stars. And when she’d gone outside that morning, thinner trails of it had still been rising lazily into the air. She has no idea what had happened, but for a fire to burn for that long out here, it had to be deliberately set. And not just set, but nurtured.

So, Rey had elected to stay at home. She had enough food to last her a week, stashed in a suitably sheltered and inconspicuous hidey-hole underneath her hammock. She can dip into her supplies now, and restock them when things are safer. She even sits inside to eat, though she misses watching the sky slowly darken, the sunlight slowly wane.

_Thunk._

Rey barely looks up. Creaks and bangs aren’t uncommon out here. Usually, it’s old metal settling, or collapsing as it decays. If she were to investigate every odd sound she heard, she’d never get anything done. Still, she’s listening a little more carefully as she mops up the protein slurry left on her plate. She’s ready to move, if she has to.

 _Thunk_.

She gets up and pokes her head outside, curious, but well aware that there is potentially a pack of arsonists roaming the wastelands of Jakku. It would be prudent to stay out of their way. Even so, Rey secretly hopes they will come looking in the old AT-AT. She’d teach them a lesson that they wouldn’t soon forget.

_Thunk._

She decides on a furtive investigation. If it looks like trouble, she doesn’t have to get involved. Still, she snatches up her staff, just in case. She crests a small dune, and there lies the source of the sound. A large orange and white ball, like a toy left behind by an enormous child, is rolling repeatedly back and forth of its own accord. It collides with a rusted fragment of metal, the dejected remains of an old piston, and the _thunk_ sounds again. Giving the thing a wide berth, she peers into the end of the piston skirt.

A loud shriek of alarm bounces around the cylinder, making Rey’s ears ring. She claps her hands over them, lets out her own shout of surprise. It _is_ a droid. And now it’s chirping away in binary, seemingly undecided about whether to beg for mercy or for help. “Hush!” she hisses, finally. The droid’s twittering peters out. The ball falls still. Rey uncovers her ears. “Thank you,” she says. “Just hold on. I’ll help you out.” She reaches into the piston skirt, and pulls out a white, dome-shaped head, with a large black photoreceptor. The head must be held in place by a magnetic clamp; she can feel the force pulling against her grip. She sets it briefly in her lap to straighten the bent antenna on the crown, then puts it in place, pulling her hands away before her fingers are clamped too.

“Is that better?” she asks. The droid turns its body and head from side to side, testing its new-found togetherness. It turns in a little circle, and chirps a _much better, thank you_.

Rey stands. “Are you alone out here?” she asks. The droid beeps an affirmative, and then a designation. “Beebee-Eight? Hello, Beebee-Eight. I’m Rey. So, where are you off to?”

The little droid’s enthusiasm drains away before Rey’s eyes. Her head droops, sliding down the sphere of her body. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t really know where she is now. Would Rey help her, please?

Rey’s first instinct is to refuse. She has no idea where this droid had come from, or if anyone is looking for her. Could she have something to do with the fires? But…the thought of the little orange-and-white droid trundling through an empty desert at night is too horrible for Rey to ignore. However perilous Jakku is during the day, nightfall brings ten times the danger, and shrouds it from view. And it’s not like she’s going to need food.

“You can stay tonight,” Rey says, eventually. “I’ll take you to the Niima Outpost tomorrow. After that, you’re on your own.”

* * *

The plan, as it stands, is as follows:

Finn will take Poe from his cell. There is another stormtrooper currently guarding Poe, and if they ask, he is transporting the prisoner to Starkiller Base, on the orders of Lord Ren. He’ll escort Poe to the main hangar bay, where they will steal a TIE fighter. Poe will assume the controls, while Finn will manage the weapons system. They’ll destroy as much of the hangar equipment as possible before fleeing. Kylo will “pursue” them in his own TIE _Silencer_. They’ll establish a secure communication link, shake the First Order, land somewhere, ditch the TIEs, and Poe can call for transport back to the Resistance base. Simple, really.

Despite the potential for danger, and the potential for betrayal, Poe is quietly excited, the sort of half-gleeful, half-guilty excitement that he feels before every mission, every dogfight, every challenge. The sharp almost-pain of anticipation threads through his stomach, and when Finn comes to collect him, he is chomping at the metaphorical bit to get moving.

“Lord Ren wants the prisoner,” Finn says, curtly, to the stormtrooper left guarding Poe. “My orders are to…”

“Eight-Seven?” the trooper says.

 _Oh no_. Poe hadn’t even considered the idea that Finn would be recognised. He’d assumed the large number of troopers and their uniform appearance would add up to anonymity. And now his idiocy is going to get them caught.

“Seven-One,” Finn says, haltingly. “I…I have orders.”

“What? No, forget the orders for a second. What is going on?” Seven-One sounds to be on the brink of crying. “You bail on us during training, and then suddenly we’re shunted off to Jakku, and Slip…” Their voice catches. “Slip’s dead, Eight-Seven! He’s _dead_.”

Poe looks down at his shoes. The nameless trooper is far from the first person he’s had to gun down on a chaotic battlefield, and Seven-One is far from the first friend left behind as a result of his actions. This is new, however. Poe had killed this man directly, and now he is faced with those bereft of them.

Finn nods, slowly. “I know. I was with him. He wasn’t alone.”

Seven-One falls silent for a moment. “You can talk to me, Eight-Seven,” they say, finally. “I saw you and Kylo Ren down there. What does he have over you?”

“What? He doesn’t have…this isn’t what you think,” Finn stammers. “This is a rescue.”

Poe makes a small noise of protest, but he already knows it’s futile. The loth-cat’s out of the bag now. Finn seems to realise this as well, because his body is tightly still, but he maintains his gaze. He watches Seven-One.

“You’re leaving,” they say. It’s not accusatory, or angry, or even incredulous. They’re just…sad. “You’re running away.”

Their tone seems to catch Finn off-guard. “I’m sorry.”

“No. No, don’t be sorry.” They reach up, and pull their helmet off. Dark, sharp eyes focus on where Finn’s face should be, beneath his own helmet. “Get out of here, and don’t look back.” Those eyes dart to Poe, and he almost cowers under their intensity. “You’re with the Resistance, right? Tell them to come back here and burn this all down. And salt the earth behind it,” they add, for good measure.

They pull their helmet back on, unlock Poe’s shackles, and walk out of the cell without another word.

* * *

Poe gets the distinct impression that Finn is leading him off the beaten path to get to the hangar. Maybe he intends to throw anyone monitoring them off their trail. Eventually, after innumerable twists and turns, they step out into the vast space and harsh lights of Hangar Six. Troopers are milling back and forth, some of them dressed in the black outfits of pilots. Poe must stand out, but none of the soldiers spare them more than a glance before returning to their work.

“Stay calm, stay calm,” Finn murmurs.

“I _am_ calm,” Poe protests.

“I was talking to myself.”

Poe almost says something smart, but then, he’s sure _he’d_ be panicking if he was running away from an authoritarian military faction that controlled every aspect of his life. Finn is holding up pretty well, all things considered.

Finally, the pair draw level with a launching rack of TIEs, and Finn whispers in his ear: “Okay. _Go_.”

They bolt for the nearest craft. People are already turning to face them, the beginnings of alarm rippling through the crowds. Poe clambers up the body and drops down into the pilot’s seat. His eyes dart over the controls, analysing them; he recognises them from his studies of downed aircraft and leaked schematics, so he knows exactly how to start the engines and activate the weapons system. “Okay, the toggle on your right switches…”

“I know,” Finn interrupts him. “We’re trained to use the weapons systems in all our craft.”

“Oh, really?” They should definitely start doing that in the Resistance. He flicks on the shields and opens the throttle. “Alright! Prepare for lift off… _man_ , I’ve always wanted to fly one of these things.”

The controls are ridiculously sensitive; it takes the slightest movement of Poe’s hands to lift the TIE. As it rises, he can hear Finn fiddling with the sight. Several stormtroopers are already shooting at them, the impacts of their laser bolts rocking the craft. Poe pushes it forward, building up power and speed. Then the TIE pivots hard to the left, with no such instruction from Poe. Not good.

“It’s tethered to the bay!” Finn shouts.

“I can fix that!” Poe searches the control panel, the walls, the ceiling, the heavens for a sign. The TIE hangs at the end of the tether, a sitting duck for the gathering stormtroopers. Finn returns fire; a loud boom tells Poe that he’d hit something significant. But even in a TIE fighter, they could be overwhelmed by enough manpower.

At that moment, Kylo Ren’s modulated voice comes through the communicator. “You need to deactivate the tether lock from the base.”

“Oh, brilliant!” Poe cries. “We could have used that information before…”

“We’re in a _TIE fighter_!” Finn yells. Before Poe can respond, the entire hangar shakes with light and fire. The force of the explosion sends the TIE shaking through the air. Poe fights to correct it, and looks back to see the entire launching rack in flames. The now-detached tether is thrown haphazardly through the air, sending several stormtroopers diving for cover. It collides with the hangar control booth, shattering the windows overlooking the carnage. Glass rains down on the soldiers and officers below. Finn lets out a whoop of laughter. Poe pushes the acceleration as far as it will go, and the TIE fighter screams out into open space.

“This thing can really move!” yells Poe, the acceleration pushing him back into the pilot’s seat. He turns the TIE fighter a hundred and eighty degrees, clinging remora-like to the underside of the _Finalizer_. “You’d better hurry up if you wanna get in on this.”

“I’m taking off now. Don’t have all the fun without me.”

“There!” A sharp, black shape drops out of another hangar, barrelling towards them at a frightening speed. Poe instinctively begins an evasive manoeuvre, spiralling dangerously close to a point-defence turret. “Hey! Hey, what are you doing?” Finn yells.

“No, it’s good,” Kylo protests. “We need to make it look convincing.” The _Silencer_ fires on them, barely missing a corner of the right wing. It meets a different target; the point-defence turret explodes into bluish flame. Too late to change course, Poe steers through the spurt of fire. The shields protect them from all but a wave of heat.

“Maybe a little _too_ convincing!” Poe yells, pulling to the left.

“If I wanted to hit you, I would have!”

Poe grinds his teeth. Bickering won’t help their situation. “We need to take out more of those cannons, or we won’t get very far,” he says, instead. “Finn, I’m gonna get us into position. You just stay sharp.”

“Okay, okay.”

Poe ducks and weaves along the _Finalizer’s_ underbelly, changing direction wildly, refusing to be predictable. The _Silencer_ stays hot on his trail, occasionally firing, but always missing. “Now!” Poe barks, and Finn unleashes a mag-pulse on the looming cannon, blasting it to rubble.

“Yes! Did you see that?” he shouts in celebration. “Did you see that?”

“I saw it!” Poe agrees. It’s hard not to enjoy himself, as he steers a sharp right, towards another cannon. Finn needs no direction this time. The cannon explodes, and he cheers with joy.

“Nice shot,” Kylo says, and Poe can hear the smile in even his voice. But Poe can see that they’re fighting a losing battle. They can’t destroy every cannon. The debris field they’ve left in their wake is another new obstacle. So Poe turns the TIE, and breaks for freedom. Down towards the planet below.

“Wait! Wait!” Finn yells. He reaches behind him to hammer on Poe’s shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“We need to go back to Jakku,” says Poe.

“What?” Finn shouts. “No! No, you said we were going to the Resistance!”

“I have to get my droid first!”

“Your _droid?!?_ ” Kylo Ren’s rage is loud enough to flatten the audio.

“White and orange BB unit, one of a kind,” Poe explains, with a sly grin. He’s rather enjoying pushing Ren’s buttons. “She’s got something I can’t let the First Order get a hold of. It’s important.”

“Important enough to get us all ki – “

Ren’s voice stops. Poe taps the communications panel. No faults detected. And he can hear short bursts of sound, stuttering coughs.

“Kylo? Kylo!” Finn is starting to panic.

The _Silencer_ is getting further and further away in the sights. Poe turns, trying to find it by eye, but sees something else emerge from hyperspace. Something that dwarfs the _Finalizer_ in its shadow. The size of it is incomprehensible. Poe’s head hurts to look at it. It’s a dark, grey shape; thousands of tiny pinprick lights do nothing to illuminate its surface. “Finn?” he shouts. “What is that?”

“That’s the _Supremacy_! That’s _Snoke’s_ ship!”

“Not good,” Poe says, more to himself than to Finn, who is now panicking. He cranes his neck, and finally spots the _Silencer_ , hovering in place. But before he can wonder why it isn’t moving, a burst of blue light stings his eyes. “Incoming!” he yells. “Finn, you have to…!”

_BOOM!_

The TIE rocks violently. Fire erupts from the control panel. The stars outside spiral, circles of light staining his vision. They’re out of control. Lights in the cockpit flicker, alarms blare, smoke stings Poe’s eyes. They’re falling – not really falling, but being thrown towards the planet. Poe prays the broken TIE will hold up against the atmosphere. That’s all he has time to pray for before his vision turns black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone. With everything going on with AO3 at the moment, I've been uploading this fic to other sites as well. If - and that's a big if - I do decide to stop posting here, you can find me on fanfiction.net under TheAntleredPolarBear, and on tumblr under lasatfat.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the chapter!


	9. Sand and Ruin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for some pretty dark descriptions of torture in the first part of the chapter.

“Your _droid?!?_ ”

Kylo adjusts the controls of the _Silencer_ , banking to his left to keep himself in between the _Finalizer_ and the TIE in front of him. Panic and fury lick at his insides. He could quite happily have obliterated the TIE, if Finn hadn’t also been aboard. They are risking life and limb for Poe Dameron, and all he can think about is some droid?

“White and orange BB unit, one of a kind.” Oh, now he’s giving _details_. “She’s got something I can’t let the First Order get a hold of. It’s important.”

“Important enough to get us all ki – “

And his throat closes.

He knows. He knows what that means. His hands move reflexively to his neck, but there is nothing to touch. Nothing for him to fight against. The proton torpedo system lights up. The targeting system locks onto the escaping TIE. He fights his instinct, tearing his hands away from his throat. Finn’s voice screams at him through the commlink. He scrambles to turn the _Silencer_ , deactivate the weapons system, something, _anything_ to change the events he knows have been set into motion. The control levers are steady. He struggles against the invisible force gripping them, like a child trying to pry something from an adult’s fingers, but he isn’t strong enough to overpower it. A strangled cry rips itself from Kylo’s throat. He has to warn Finn.

Too late.

The proton torpedo bursts forth in a blinding flare of light. He prays that it won’t find its target. A futile hope. It strikes the TIE in a shower of sparks. The broken starfighter tumbles to the planet below, leaving a trail of smoke and splintered glass in its wake. Could anyone survive that fall?

The _Silencer_ turns of its own accord. Kylo reaches for the controls – he has to go down there, he has to find Finn and Poe, it’s all his _fault_ – but the force holding them is unyielding. It pulls the fighter on, towards the _Supremacy_ , a fish caught on an impossibly strong line. He knows where it is taking him. Back to the throne room. Back to his master.

The throne room has its own small hangar, for an escape craft. The bay doors slide open, and there he is. Supreme Leader Snoke. One malformed hand reaches out, drawing the _Silencer_ ever closer. His already aberrant face is twisted with fury.

The _Silencer_ comes to rest. Kylo is released. But he doesn’t move. He watches the Supreme Leader through the fighter’s windshield. It’s a foolish thought, that maybe if he stays here, he’ll be safe. No, he can’t hide. Even if he made himself invisible, he would never be able to shield his mind. He’d been so stupid, to think he wouldn’t be found out. He had killed Finn with his arrogance.

His helmet is next to turn against him. It pulls at him, yanks him upright in his seat. His neck ominously creaks. He grabs for the latches under his chin, fumbling in panic. The face plate cuts into his flesh. But he frees himself.

“Come out of there!” the Supreme Leader roars. But he does not wait for a reaction. The hatch above Kylo’s head flies open, and the invisible force grips him again, like a giant hand around his chest. He is lifted up, and he knows what is coming. He’d learned long ago not to scream. Screaming only prolongs the castigation. Every muscle seizes. Shrinks. Tendons rip, bones crack under the pressure. His skin stretches to its breaking point, and bursts. Tears and sweat burn his eyes. But he doesn’t scream.

As suddenly as it started, it stops. He falls heavily to the floor. Unharmed, physically, but trembling in shock. It never is real. He ought to be glad for that.

“Did you think you had hidden it from me? _Idiot boy!_ ” He throws out an arm, and Kylo moves with it, launched away from the Supreme Leader. He collides with a railing. Pain shudders up his spine. His legs give way beneath him, and he collapses, head striking the floor hard enough to send stars exploding in front of his eyes. Vision swimming, he pushes himself up. The Supreme Leader seizes a handful of his robes, and lifts him, bringing him close enough for Kylo to feel his breath on his face, the back of a too-cold hand pressed against his cheek.

“Defy me again, and I will spread your atoms across this wretched system.”

He drops Kylo to the floor again. Perhaps he knows. Even the worst of his tortures could not match Kylo’s agony. Finn is gone. He is alone now, except for his master. He could resist. He might even win, and if he didn’t, oblivion sounds more inviting than this life.

The Force flickers inside him, and he remembers. It isn’t just his own life on the line any more.

So he kneels. He curls in on himself, arms outstretched and pleading. “I will do anything you ask.”

Kylo feels the Supreme Leader’s foreign satisfaction twisting in his own gut. “Do not think your penance has ended here.” He moves away, leaving a wretched Kylo to rest his thumping head on the floor.

Behind him, the elevator door opens. Kylo falls to his side. He does not try to hide his face; what humiliation could affect him now? General Hux approaches the throne, and kneels respectfully. “You sent for me, Supreme Lead…” Kylo raises his head, just enough to see Hux’s sharp eyes looking back at him. He’s been caught off guard.

“Your report, General,” the Supreme Leader prods, impatiently. Hux shakes his head a little, and rises to his feet.

“We have already identified the location of the crash site,” he explains. “Captain Phasma has taken the liberty of sending a task force to the planet’s surface. If there is anything at all left of the rebel and the traitor, the troopers have orders to retrieve it.”

“Good,” the Supreme Leader replies, dismissively. Kylo’s chest burns. A traitor, that’s all Finn is now. His punishment will be torture, and execution. Kylo prays that he’s already dead.

“Supreme Leader, I take full responsibility for any – “

“ _GENERAL_!” The Supreme Leader’s voice echoes around the room, loud enough to hurt Kylo’s ears. He flinches involuntarily. _Pathetic. Pathetic._

A long silence follows, before the Supreme Leader speaks again. “There has been a change of plan. Return to Starkiller Base, and begin preparation of the weapon.”

* * *

The Knights of Ren come to collect him from the throne room. His loyal following. His leash. They must not let the rank and file see his shame. Kylo Ren is beyond caring. He barely notices where they are taking him. A detention cell, perhaps, or a torture facility. He is almost surprised when they lead him to his quarters aboard the _Finalizer_. They seal him inside, alone but for the weight of his grief, and a battered, empty helmet.

The sight of it pierces the numbness. Kylo falls to his knees before the mask, presses his own forehead to its carapace. He pleads for help, but he doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Strength? To be made unfeeling? To forget? It doesn’t matter. He asks anyway. He prays to an insensate relic, while the Knights guard their weeping prisoner.

Far below the fleet, Jakku turns on, the people roaming its surface mostly oblivious to the fleet hovering far beyond its atmosphere.

Mostly.

Finn wakes up to the smell of smoke, and the crackle of flames. He’s still strapped tightly into the rear gunner’s seat, only now it’s on its side, and outside the cockpit of the TIE fighter itself. Either that, or the cockpit is half-filled with sand. He opens his eyes to find out, and immediately shuts them against the merciless sunlight. He spits the sand out of his mouth. His hands fumble for the straps of the seat, and as the events of the past few hours start to return to him in dribs and drabs, his movements become more and more desperate. They’d crashed. He’d held out as long as he could before activating the ejector seats, and then he’d passed out. He has no idea where Poe is.

He finally manages to free himself. He stumbles to his feet, turning in an ungainly circle, spotting the smoking TIE about a hundred feet away. He runs toward the wreckage, the sand shifting unhelpfully under his feet. “Poe!” he calls, though he has a horrible feeling no one is there to hear him. “Poe, where are you? _Poe_!”

He finally reaches the craft, and it’s empty. The pilot’s seat is clearly visible, still in the broken shell of the cockpit. And there’s an arm, stars above, there’s an arm poking out from under the sand. He grabs at it, frantically, but the arm is too thin, too floppy. He pulls it free, and it’s a jacket. It’s Poe’s jacket. The only thing left of him in sight.

Finn drops to his knees and _howls_.

* * *

Rey’s journey to the Niima Outpost has taken a little longer today. She’d managed to affix Beebee-Eight to the side of her speeder with the thick rope net that usually carried scrap, but neither one of them was sure of its ability to carry such weight. Rey had made several stops at Beebee-Eight’s insistence to double-check knots or tighten up straps. Finally, Rey had pulled into the designated landing area for swoops and speeders, and let Beebee-Eight drop heavily into the sand. The little droid seems more than happy to be back on the ground.

“Stay close,” says Rey, solemnly. “I’m going to sell what I can, then we’ll find Constable Zuvio. He’ll know who can give you a lift.”

Beebee-Eight beeps in alarm, rotating her head from side to side as she babbles frantically. She has to wait here, on Jakku. Someone’s coming back for her. A hard, cold lump forms in Rey’s chest.

“I know all about waiting,” she says, finally. “Don’t give up hope, okay? I’m sure your friend will come soon.”

Beebee-Eight looks up at her, hopefully. She wonders who Rey is waiting for.

“For my family,” she replies. “They’ll be back, one day.” She manages a smile, but not a convincing one. To her credit, the droid doesn’t draw attention to it. “Come on. Constable Zuvio knows everyone that passes through here. Maybe your friend came through looking for you.” Beebee-Eight seems somewhat heartened by this possibility, and follows Rey with a more confident chirp.

Beebee-Eight’s head constantly turns as Rey cleans a few pieces of scrap, taking in the comings and goings around them. Rey can understand her uneasiness; several passers-by have been eyeing the pair with envy and hunger. None of them would dare move on them. And even if they do, Rey’s staff is propped against the table beside her, ready to defend her companion. The stares don’t stop as the pair queue to bring their offerings to Unkar Plutt’s booth. The old lady is there again – she joins the line right after Rey – and though she too has a strange look for the droid, she also offers Rey her usual kind smile. They’d exchanged names during their second meeting. Hers is Basma.

“Next.”

A human man with leathery skin and a scruffy beard turns away from Plutt, and Rey steps up to the concession stand. She places a pair of plasma transverters onto the counter, and waits for the verdict.

Unkar Plutt looks them over, frowning. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Rey repeats.

Plutt grunts. “For these pieces, I can offer you…” He picks up one of the transverters, turning it over in his oedematous fingers, as he considers how that sentence will end. “…one half-portion.” Last week, they were worth a half-portion each. She almost tells him this, but for once, she holds her tongue. She’s making enough waves today already. She turns around to leave, but Plutt speaks again. “What about the droid?”

Rey stops. “What about her?”

“It with you?”

Rey turns around, and Plutt’s face is spread in a horrible, misshapen smile. “ _She_ might be,” she replies, pointedly. “Why?”

“You know I’d pay for it,” he says. He looks like he might be drooling. Rey has to swallow back her meagre lunch; she can’t afford to lose the moisture.

“Maybe I need her,” she responds, eventually. “I like having her around.”

Plutt seems to ignore this response completely. He reaches down and grabs a handful of food packets, slamming them down on the counter. And then another. And another. “For the droid, sixty portions,” he gurgles, and drops the final handful on the top of the already grand pile.

Rey stares at it. She can’t remember ever seeing so much food. Her hands reach out to touch it, feeling the plastoid wrap under her fingertips. How long could she make this last? Weeks? Months? She wouldn’t have to go hungry when the sandstorms come, or the days she finds nothing useful to pull from long-dead starships. She looks back at Beebee-Eight. She thinks of watching a freighter ship climb higher and higher into sky, with her feet still firmly planted in the endless sand. Thousands of scratches on a metal wall. She wonders how a droid might mark the time on a lonely desert planet.

“Sorry,” says Rey, softly. “The droid’s not for sale.”

She picks up her half-portion, which looks even more meagre in comparison to the mountain of food she had just rejected. “Come on,” she says, to the little droid. “You can spend the night. You don’t want to be out here after dark.” She gestures with a jerk of her head, and the pair walk away.

Behind them, Unkar Plutt raises a battered communicator to his lips. “This is Plutt. The human girl, Rey, she has something I want.”

* * *

Finn realises, as he trudges through deep sand, that Jakku’s days get very, _very_ hot. He only wishes he’d realised these things before he’d cried out so much valuable moisture. It had been several minutes before he’d been able to move from the crash site. He’d spotted trails of smoke on the horizon, and he’d headed towards them, while the TIE was swallowed up behind him.

Literally swallowed up, by the sand beneath it. He’d never seen such a thing before.

With nowhere to go back to, he’d walked. He’d shed his armour as he went, but he kept Poe’s jacket, holding it over his head to block out the sun. Eventually, he’d crested a ledge, and seen something laid out at the base of a rocky hill. Cloth tents and crude metal constructions. A shipyard. _Civilization_.

After climbing down the slope, Finn takes a look at his surroundings. There are a few market stalls spread around, under sand-stained awnings. People have started to gesture and shout to him, in languages he doesn’t understand. Beyond the ramshackle marketplace, a few people move between the tents, carrying sacks of goods or exchanging quick greetings, never staying for too long out in the relentless sun. Finn can understand why.

“Menue?” Finn looks down, seeking the source of the little voice, and is met with a pair of bright, hazel eyes. The girl before him can’t be any older than seven. She’s dressed in beige rags, and her thin, honey-brown face is smeared with dirt, but what really interests him is the canteen she holds in her tiny hands. “Menue?” the girl says, again, and Finn needs no more encouragement. He snatches the canteen, raises it to his lips and gulps down the water. Stars above, it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. It soothes the burn in his throat, fills his empty belly, and clears the parts of his mind that are fogged with thirst.

Apparently, one of those parts is the part that processes the implications of taking water from young children on arid desert planets. He is suddenly struck by the crushing guilt and shame that should accompany such a heinous act.

“Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry.” The girl looks unperturbed, however, and simply holds up her hands to take the canteen back. Finn hands it over, with a sheepish, “here you go.”

Finally, the girl seems to realise what he’s done, because her little face screws up in anger. “Matem!” she cries.

“I know, I’m sorry!”

“Matem!” Panicking a little now, Finn reaches for the canteen again - maybe that will help somehow? - but the girl slaps his hand away. “Nie, matem!” she shouts again. She sticks her bottom lip out, deep in thought, and then manages to speak a single, mispronounced word in Basic. “ _Trade_.”

“Oh!” Well, shoot, what does he have to give her? Finn pats Poe’s jacket, but it’s disappointingly flat, and anyway, it seems wrong to give her a dead man’s belongings. So instead, he shuffles through the pouches on his belt, but can only come up with some spare ammunition. “Here you go. I’m sorry, it’s all I have…”

But the little girl gasps like she’s just been handed the keys to a star yacht. She squeals in delight. “Tank you!”

“Er…you’re welcome,” Finn replies, with a little smile. The girl _beams_ up at him. He can’t help but grin back. She bounces in a half-circle, and runs off, shouting to a middle-aged woman. When she sees the girl’s spoils, she too claps her hands with joy. Finn shrugs. That’s probably the least weird thing that has happened to him today.

A cry comes from somewhere to his left. His head whips ‘round, just in time to see a pair of huge, robed figures accosting a young woman. One of them lifts her into the air, while the other brings a rough sack down on something beside her. Robbing her. Before Finn can consciously come to the decision to help, his feet are moving him forward, running to the woman’s aid. By the time the third step has fallen, however, he has realised that she might not need his help at all. She leans back into the man holding her, kicking the other assailant’s head with vicious precision. She bites into the arm around her chest, sending the attacker attached to it reeling, and once she has retrieved a long staff from the ground, she delivers a swift set of blows that send both goons running for cover. She reaches down, and pulls the sack off of…a droid.

A BB unit.

An orange and white BB unit.

The droid looks up at Finn, and beeps shrilly.

 _FWAK_!

Pain explodes across his jaw. The block knocks Finn to the ground. He moans, and tries to sit up, only to be met with one end of a staff. The young woman is standing over him, face twisted in a scowl, and she jabs him spitefully in the chest.

“Thief.” She spits the word as if it’s the vilest of slurs.

Finn opens his mouth to protest, but before he can, all his muscles enter painful spasm. He looks down to see the little droid has poked him with some electrical implement. “What was that for?”

“That jacket. My droid friend says you stole it,” the girl shouts.

“Listen, I’ve had a really messed up day, so I’d appreciate it if – OW!” The droid has jabbed him again. It lets out a noise that sounds like a mischievous giggle. “Stop that!”

“It belongs to her master. Where did you get it?”

“Your master?” Finn’s stomach sinks somewhere into the region of the planet’s core. “Poe Dameron, he was your master.” The droid beeps an affirmative, nodding the dome of its head. Finn sighs. “We escaped the First Order together, but we crashed. Poe didn’t make it.” The droid’s head droops, with a mournful little whine.

“I’m sorry, Beebee-Eight,” the girl says. She turns back to Finn. “So, that must mean you’re with the Resistance.”

“I…yes,” he says, getting to his feet. He doesn’t know how he would explain the truth of the situation without earning the same treatment she’d just given to her two random attackers. He needs to get off this planet, and get back to Kylo, and he can’t do that if this girl beats him into a coma. “Poe said he needed to get back here. He said Beebee-Eight was carrying something important.” Beebee-Eight babbles a reply, one that Finn takes several seconds to process. The droid is carrying a map to Luke Skywalker.

Luke. Karking. Skywalker.

“I thought he was just a _myth_ ,” the girl says, awestruck. That snaps him out of his stupor. Jakku must really be out of the way.

Before he can ask, Beebee-Eight lets out a series of panicked beeps. Finn follows her gaze, and his heart jumps into his throat. Two figures clad in bone-white armour are standing before some kind of booth, and its hideous occupant raises a distended hand to point in their direction. The stormtroopers begin to advance on them. The First Order have found him.

“Come on, Beebee-Eight!” he shouts. He grabs the girl’s hand, and pulls her into a run.

“What are you doing?” she protests. “Let go of me!”

“We’ve gotta move!”

“I know how to run without you holding my hand!” The two dash in between the tents, with Beebee-Eight hot on their heels. Blaster bolts strike the sand behind them or whistle past their ears. “This way!” And she pulls him into a hard left turn.

Around them, the citizens of the Outpost had erupted into panic. People are running in all directions, or diving behind tables or piles of scrap. Finn and the girl follow suit, ducking through the crowd and into a tent.

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, hurriedly, and he really is. “They saw you with me. They want you too now.”

“Oh, thanks for that!” she hisses. He opens his mouth to respond, but a then he hears a sound that turns his blood to ice: the tell-tale scream of a TIE fighter’s engine.

“They’ve ordered an air strike!” he yells, and he grabs her hand again.

“Stop taking my - !” is all she has time to say, before an explosion rocks the ground beneath their feet. The tent rips apart, and the force of the impact sends the two flying backwards out of it. That was _way_ too close.

The girl gets to her feet before he does, and now it’s her turn to grab his hand, and yank him onwards. They sprint away from the awnings, out onto open ground, and before Finn can tell her what a terrible idea that is, he realises where she’s leading them.

“We don’t have a pilot!” he shouts.

“Yes, we do!” she replies. She’s making a beeline for a bright red quadjumper, but it must be a hundred metres away. They’d never make it.

“What about that ship?” he yells, pointing to his left at a battered old freighter.

“That one’s _garbage_!”

The TIE fighters soar overhead, bearing down on them. Except, when they fire, it’s not at the two figures running pell-mell over the sand. The quadjumper explodes into a million pieces before them. Finn and the girl come skidding to a halt.

She takes a split second to reassess, and then says, “the garbage will do!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry if this chapter is a bit rough around the edges. I'm still learning how to write action scenes well, which should make the next chapter very interesting.
> 
> Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and I hope you will stay with me into 2021.


	10. The Garbage Does

Rey hurtles up the landing ramp of the freighter (what was it called? The Hawk?) and turns a hard right into the cockpit access tunnel. “The gun port you want is down the ladder!” she shouts, and the stranger’s footsteps clunk in the right direction. Rey throws herself into the pilot’s seat. “I can do this,” she tells herself, as she flips switches and throws levers into position, the engine rumbling to life somewhere behind her. “I can do this.”

The ship trembles haphazardly, and for a horrible second Rey wonders if it is going to fly at all, but then her stomach jumps a little, and she knows that they’re airborne. The ground shifts beneath them. It slides down the windscreen until Rey can only see the cloudless sky above. They’re up. And then they bump back to the ground. Rey lets out a frightened noise as the cockpit tilts, dragging a deep groove into the sand below. The ship swings this way and that, as she grapples with the unfamiliar controls, though she is quickly attuning to their sensitivity. Levelling off, she turns the ship skyward, and speeds away, sending awnings and people alike tumbling around in the wind.

Meanwhile, Unkar Plutt barrels out of his Concession Stand. He runs out into the open, knocking several smaller people off of their feet. They stare, slack-jawed, after him – no one has ever seen him move so far, or so fast. Plutt raises his bulbous fists to the sky, opens his lop-sided mouth to curse. He doesn’t see the club that strikes his head, or the bag of components that comes crashing down upon him. The blows render him unconscious, as the scavengers of the Niima Outpost extract their vengeance. Constable Zuvio does not intervene. He could not stop them even if he tried.

Rey is oblivious to Plutt’s death. Even if she wasn’t, she’s more than a little preoccupied with not dying herself. The outboard sensors pick up two enemy craft, weaving around them, tracking their erratic movements. Her companion’s voice crackles out of a speaker on the control panel. “Stay low!” he shouts. “It’s our only chance! And put the shields up!”

Reaching across the co-pilot’s seat, she can just about hit the shield activation control, though not without the ship turning sharply right. In the distance, she can see the triangle of a Star Destroyer’s hull, jutting up from amongst the dunes.

Well, if they’re going to die, they might as well head for a graveyard.

“Beebee-Eight, hold on!” she calls. She turns the freighter in a vertical loop, and dives low to the ground, clipping the top of a dune and sending up a cloud of sand in their wake. The TIEs fire on them; the shields hold, but there’s no sign of retaliation. “Any time you want to start shooting!” she yells, over her shoulder.

“Try sitting in this thing!” the stranger protests. The gun turret, as it transpires, is just as sensitive as the controls, and swings wildly back and forth with each of his movements. “We need cover!”

“We’re about to get some!” Rey replies, flicking a sequence of switches as they enter the Graveyard. “I hope,” she adds, under her breath.

The freighter slaloms between the ribs of old warships, grazing the sharp metal, knocking loose debris to clatter against the hull. Finn has finally gained some control over the erratic movements of the gun turret. He fires back at their pursuers, switching his aim frequently between the two craft. One of them lands a hit on the freighter’s roof. It jolts downward, driving the engine exhaust across bare sand, but still they fly. This old thing is tougher than it looks.

In the cockpit, Rey throws the accelerator down further. She drives the freighter towards the peak of a Star Destroyer up ahead. Closer, closer, closer until it almost fills the windscreen. Then she yanks on the controls. The freighter turns a hard left, and barely misses the wreckage. Something makes a worrying scraping noise, but no alarms are blaring, so they must still be airworthy. Either that or the alarm systems are broken. She tries not to think about that.

“We lost one!” her gunner shouts. That’s more manageable, at least.

With only one TIE still on their tail, Finn can focus on a singular target. The pilot flies lower, underneath another giant fragment of machinery, throwing the gun turret into shadow. The weapons system beeps shrilly. The TIE is in his crosshairs. Finn squeezes the trigger button, and the starfighter explodes behind them. The shockwave catches the freighter, shaking it fiercely. Finn whoops and cheers. “I got him!” he yells, elatedly.

“Nice job!” Rey shouts over her shoulder. She imagines the wreckage crashing to the sand below, a gift to the scavengers scouring the wastes.

Their mutual jubilation is cut short as second TIE comes screaming, all guns blazing, over the crest of a nearby dune. Finn mashes on the trigger button, but is dazzled by a flash of blinding light. 

“I’m stuck in the forward position!” Finn yells. “The cannon won’t move! You’ve gotta lose ‘em!”

Another blast rocks the freighter. Other warning lights snap on over the control panel. Nothing vital has been damaged, yet, but it’s only a matter of time before the shields give way and the TIE blows them out of the sky.

But she’d forgotten, in the chaos, exactly where she is. She looks up from the outboard monitor and into the gaping engine exhausts of a giant Star Dreadnought protruding from the sand, like the empty sockets of a half-buried skull staring back at her. An idea sparks into her mind. “Get ready!” she yells, throwing levers and switches into position, turning off proximity alarms. This is going to be a tight squeeze. She flies the freighter in a wide circle, searching for the perfect angle, and when she meets it, she speeds straight into the mouth of the warship’s dead engine.

And immediately regrets it when the TIE follows her inside. There’s no doubt that they’ve given the smaller and more agile starfighter a significant advantage. All Rey has on her side is familiarity. The freighter is too big to fit through most of the ventilation shafts; sparks fill the air as its hull scrapes the walls.

“ _Are we really doing this?_ ” Finn yells, as the gun turret is once again thrown into shadow. The TIE follows them, weaving its own way through the warship’s mangled interior, but staying hot on their trail. It fires on them again. Something explodes up ahead, sending black smoke and dust spurting over the ship. Finn watches, helpless, as the TIE edges ever closer.

“Are you ready with the cannon?” the girl yells, from the cockpit.

“Yeah!” he shouts back. She must be planning something. He prays that it will work.

Rey throws another lever down, and heaves on the joystick controls. The freighter turns a stomach-churningly sharp right, bursting through a hole in the warship’s hull and back out into the open. Sunlight rains down into the cockpit. She whispers a quick prayer to whatever gods may exist. Then she cuts power to the engines.

The freighter falls.

The TIE rolls up the gun port’s window.

The aiming system beeps. Finn fires.

The air above fills with flame as the final TIE explodes into scrap. Finn cheers as the engines of the freighter roar back to life, catching them before they hit the ground. The body of the starfighter crashes to the sand, a trail of black smoke tracing its path. The freighter, victorious, breaks for the freedom of the sky. It climbs higher and higher, so fast that Finn’s stomach tingles. The starship wrecks shrink below him to the size of abacus beads, and then disappear amidst the endless sand. Finally, the freighter shakes as it escapes Jakku’s atmosphere, and soars away from the planet of its captivity.

Rey loads up the autopilot, and runs down the cockpit access tunnel. Her gunner meets her in the corridor, almost colliding with her, and they both erupt into exuberant chatter. It’s not a conversation, more like an outpouring of joy and laughter and sheer disbelief. _That was some piloting! I’ve flown some ships, but never this one. Where did you learn to fly like that?_ _You shot that fighter on the first try! You set me up for it there. You got him with one blast! I can’t believe you’ve never flown this thing before! I can’t believe we’re in space!_

Presently, the adrenaline begins to fade, and their voices trail off into heavy breathing, though their grins remain. Beebee-Eight trundles up to them, looking very rattled despite her lack of moveable facial features. Rey had almost forgotten her. She kneels down, touching the orb of the droid’s body, the same way one might place a comforting hand on another’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re okay. He…” And she realises, with a pang of guilt, that she doesn’t know this man’s name. She gives Beebee-Eight a light pat, and stands back up, to look her gunner in the eye. “My name’s Rey,” she says. “What’s yours?”

He pauses, not even for a second, but he answers. He must have decided to trust her. “I’m Finn.”

“Finn,” she repeats, with a smile. She turns back to Beebee-Eight. “Finn’s with the Resistance. We can take you home.”

Beebee-Eight begins to chirp something, but before Rey can tell what she’s saying, she’s interrupted by a loud crack from the crew lounge. The trio turn, to see a cloud of steam shooting out from beneath the grated floor.

“Shoot!” Rey curses. “Finn, grab that toolbox. We need to fix that before it damages something important.”

The two-man crew of the battered freighter rush towards the fault, one stopping briefly to heft a large toolbox up off the floor. Neither of them has any reason to return to the cockpit. Of course, that means neither of them notices a small, scarlet light begin blinking away, sending a signal out into the great expanse of space.

* * *

General Armitage Hux has a certain predilection for the finer things the galaxy has to offer. He has sampled delicacies from a thousand worlds. His drinks cabinets contain only the finest of spirits, perfectly blended and matured. At night, whether he is aboard a flagship, or on Starkiller Base, he sleeps soundly beneath sheets of Alderaanian cotton, surrounded by beautiful art and comfortable furniture.

It is in his office on Starkiller Base that Hux now restlessly waits. He’d examined reports of Lor San Tekka’s interrogation, and the traitorous FN-2187’s escape from the Niima Outpost. The connections are not lost on him. From what they’d gathered, the Resistance pilot had been accompanied by an orange and white BB unit, and the same droid had been recorded on stormtrooper helmet cams, fleeing the Outpost in the ex-stormtrooper’s company. What’s more, several eyewitnesses reported that the droid claimed to have a map to Luke Skywalker in its possession. The search for the lost Resistance pilot is ongoing, but the lead the droid represents is not one they can afford to ignore.

These events have not unsettled Hux. No, it is his earlier encounter in the Supreme Leader’s throne room that has perturbed him. He had always thought of Kylo Ren as something like a spoiled child; insolent, reckless, and undeserving of the trust that the Supreme Leader appeared to place in him. It appears that he’d been wrong. He doesn’t know what had so infuriated Snoke, but when he’d looked Kylo Ren in the eye, he’d recognised everything he’d seen in them. At that moment, he’d been looking at a frightened boy in the midst of a beating.

A buzzer sounds, alerting him to his colleague’s arrival. “Enter,” he says, curtly.

The door slides open, and Captain Phasma steps in. A sharp tactical mind and a talented warrior, she is a military commander without parallel. His father had plucked her off of a ravaged planet called Parnassos, out in the Unknown Regions, and it had been among the best tactical decisions the man had ever made. He had made a severe error of judgement, however: he had assumed that Phasma’s loyalty was to him, and not the First Order. When Brendol Hux had become a liability, Phasma had cut him down without hesitation.

He is prepared to kill her, if the need arises, though he hopes he won’t have to.

“You sent for me, General Hux.”

“Captain Phasma,” he says, in greeting. “You have permission to remove your helmet.” 

She does so, holding it under one arm. Her face is littered with old scars, some disconcertingly long or deep. “Thank you, sir.”

He stands, and moves to the drinks cabinet. Phasma has no interest in alcohol, but she can always be tempted by a glass of fresh water, mined directly from one of Starkiller’s innumerable glaciers. “I trust you’re up to date on the reports from Jakku?”

“With respect, sir, you didn’t summon me here just to ask that.”

Such a response would earn disciplinary action, had it come from anybody else. Instead, Hux smiles wryly, and hands her the glass of water. Phasma discreetly switches off her own helmet’s recording equipment, before she accepts the glass.

“We may wish to reconsider our position on Kylo Ren,” Hux says, bluntly. Phasma raises an eyebrow, but says nothing in response. Not that she needs to; her expression communicates her scepticism better than any way she could phrase it. He turns to pour himself a glass of a weaker liquor. “It seems the relationship between the Supreme Leader and his apprentice is rather more…” He pauses to consider the choice of word carefully. “… _strained_ than I assumed.”

“Strained?” Phasma repeats, clearly unimpressed.

“Enough that I believe he might be persuaded to join our cause, if we are careful.” He sips his drink, savouring the taste a moment before swallowing. “You can’t deny, he would be a substantial asset. He certainly brings a new skill set.”

“Do you really think we could convince him to kill the Supreme Leader?” says Phasma, incredulously.

“I don’t think we need to,” he retorts. “We need to convince him not to stop us.”

Phasma’s expression is impassive, as she analyses the possibilities Hux has just presented to her. No doubt she is making the same considerations he had. He doubts she will come to the same conclusion. She’d had to fight for everything she now has, every single facet of her being. It has made her somewhat unsympathetic, or perhaps she was always that way. Eventually, she gives her answer, and it’s more or less exactly how Hux had been expecting. “Wait until the Jedi hunters have been trained. If Ren causes trouble, we need to be able to neutralize him quickly.”

Hux nods, solemnly. “Ever the pragmatist, Captain Phasma,” he says. He hopes it won’t come to that. If nothing else, it would be a terrible waste of Ren’s particular talents. He raises his glass, with a dry smirk. “Long live the Supreme Leader.”

Phasma raises her own glass, and inclines her head slightly. “Long live the Supreme Leader.”

The tumblers clink together, and General Hux and Captain Phasma drink to their future victories.

* * *

Finn is a good soldier. He can fight hand-to-hand, and with a range of weapons. He can recognise any common battle formation, and knows how to counter each one. He can conduct basic repairs on small vehicles. He can disassemble and reassemble most types of weapon in minutes. Only Zeroes can do it faster than he can.

None of this, as it turns out, translates to maintaining a starship. Rey is currently below the floor of the crew lounge, hammering away at something or other, as more and more steam escapes into the room. “How’s it looking now?” he asks.

“If we want to live, not good,” Rey replies, bluntly. “Pass me a Harris wrench.”

The ship rumbles around them, as Finn rummages through the mess inside the toolbox. He finds the correct tool, and hands it to Rey. She disappears back into the vapour. “One of the coolant pipes is nicked and it’s cooling the air instead. That’s what this is.” She waves a hand around above the floor. “Condensation.”

“The First Order are out here looking for us,” he warns. “You have to get us moving again, quickly. We’ve gotta get out of this system.”

“If we don’t seal up this leak, the fuel in the propulsion tanks will heat up and evaporate. The ship will be flooded with poisonous gas,” Rey retorts. “Poisonous _flammable_ gas. The First Order will be the least of our worries then.” She comes back up, only to point to another tool. Finn hands it to her obediently, and she ducks back into the vapour. “Besides, I can’t take you to the Resistance Base if I don’t know where it is,” she adds.

Finn looks at Beebee-Eight, pointedly, but she only babbles something about the location of the base being need-to-know only. Rey’s head re-emerges from below the floor, staring daggers at the little droid. “’Need to know?’” she says, indignantly. Beebee-Eight chatters worriedly. “If I’m taking you there, _I_ need to know!”

The ship lets out another mechanical racket, and Rey’s eyes widen in fear as she dives back under the floor. Now out of her line of sight, Finn edges closer to an increasingly jittery Beebee-Eight.

“Look, you gotta tell us where your Base is,” he whispers, close to what he hopes is an audio sensor. Beebee-Eight warbles a response, pointing out that he should already know that. Finn grits his teeth. “Okay, look, I lied. I’m not with the Resistance. But I did know Poe, and I did try to help him escape. One of us got left behind, just like you did. If you tell us where the Base is, we can get you home, and I can go back and find my friend. Deal?”

“Beebee-Eight!” Rey shouts, her head rising once again above the steam. Finn can see the sweat forming on her face. 

“Go on, Beebee-Eight, tell her,” Finn prompts. Beebee-Eight looks to him, then to Rey, then back to him again. He gives the droid a pleading look. Beebee-Eight turns back to Rey before finally babbling something else.

“The Ileenium System!” Rey cries, in response.

“The Ileenium System, that’s the one. We’re going to the Ileenium System,” Finn agrees. He couldn’t find the Ileenium System if there was a blaster to his head, but Beebee-Eight will know where they’re going. He gives the droid a grateful thumbs-up, which Beebee-Eight reciprocates in the form of a small welding torch pointed upwards. At least, Finn _hopes_ she’s giving him a thumbs-up.

“We’re not going anywhere at this rate,” Rey complains. She pops up once again, and points to something on Finn’s left. “Pass me the bonding tape.”

He rummages through the toolbox again. There are at least four different rolls of tape inside, none of which are labelled. He grabs the one that looks the strongest, and holds it up for her to inspect. “No,” she says. He grabs another, which she also rejects, and then something else cylindrical, which prompts an exasperated look, and a “does that look like tape to you?” Finally, he hands her a third roll of tape, and she snatches it out of his hand.

“You’re welcome,” Finn mutters, under his breath. 

If Rey hears it, she doesn’t address it. “The Ileenium System is in another quadrant entirely. I can drop you off at the Ponemah Terminal – that’s neutral territory – and you’ll have to find someone to take you the rest of the way.”

That catches Finn off-guard. “Why?” he blurts. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

“I need to get back to Jakku.”

“What the -?” The flow of steam finally abates, though Finn’s confusion doesn’t. “Why is everyone so obsessed with _Jakku_?”

Rey emerges from under the floor once again, looking ready to argue, but then the lights in the crew lounge go down. The two stare at each other in the dim light. Both seem gripped by a fear that neither wants to vocalise.

Rey is the one to break the silence. “That can’t be good.”

“Is it the motivator?” asks Finn.

“No, I fixed that,” she answers, much to his horror. “This is something else. This is bad.”

Finn pulls her out of the hole, and the pair run towards the cockpit. The ship jolts as they reach the mouth of the access tunnel, almost knocking them off their feet. The wall beside them clanks ominously.

No, not the wall. 

The _airlock_.

“Hide!” Rey hisses, grabbing his arm and pulling him back towards the crew lounge. They drop into the hole in the floor, lowering Beebee-Eight down with them, and Finn closes the hatch over their heads.

There’s enough room for them both to crouch, arms half extended. In the low light, Finn can barely see his surroundings. A mess of tangled tubes and pipes, a dozen or so gauges lining one wall, a braid of red and purple wires…and a pair of breathing masks.

“Hey, you were talking about poisonous flammable gases earlier,” Finn whispers.

“I fixed the coolant pipe,” Rey replies.

Finn takes one of the breathing masks from its hook, and holds it out for her to take. “Can you un-fix it?” Rey’s eyes widen in realisation, and she pulls the mask over her mouth and nose. Finn reaches for the other, and by the time he’s put it on, Rey has retrieved a small scalpel-like tool, no doubt from one of the pouches on her belt. She holds it up to the taped-up pipe, ready to sever it.

Above them, the airlock finally hisses open. Finn’s stomach seems to have shrunk to half its normal size. One set of footsteps clanks over the metal floor, followed by a second, muffled set. A voice speaks. A voice that is not muffled by a stormtrooper’s helmet.

“Chewie, we’re _home_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one ended up a little bit longer than usual, I think? But hopefully it's not just a load of waffle. See you next time!


	11. Truth and Honest Lies

Hidden in the manhole under the grated floor, Finn, Rey and Beebee-Eight huddle together. None of them moving, the two humans barely dare to breathe. Rey holds the scalpel, poised, prepared to slice through the coolant pipe. Finn keeps his eyes up, towards the lounge. His plan is to wait for the intruders to walk over the grate, and somehow communicate to Rey to cut the pipe at that moment. He lightly taps her arm – _get ready_ , he wants it to mean – and to his horror, she startles. The scalpel escapes her grip. It clatters noisily, impossibly loudly onto the floor.

A stretch of terrified silence follows.

Rey drops, feeling for the scalpel. But before she can find it, the grate above them lifts. Finn barks a surprised noise, and puts his hands up. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rey mimic him. The intruders aren’t stormtroopers, for all the good that does them. There are two of them, a human man, and a large, bipedal creature covered in shaggy hair. “Who are you?” the man asks, brandishing a pistol. “Where are the others?”

“It’s just us!” Rey cries. The hairy creature lets out some garbled moans, scowling down at them. To Finn’s shock, Rey replies. “ _I’m_ the pilot. We’re the only ones on board.”

“What the…?” Finn’s brow furrows in confusion. “You can understand that thing?”

“And ‘that thing’ can understand you, too,” the man says, defensively, “so _watch it_.” The creature punctuates the warning with a loud growl. Finn decides to watch it.

The stranger waves his arm, taking the blaster off of them. “Come outta there. C’mon.”

Rey exchanges looks with Finn, but neither of them has a better idea, so they pull off their breathing masks, and she furtively picks up the scalpel to stow it back in a belt pouch. She pulls herself out of the manhole quicker than even a highly-trained stormtrooper. Finn stays down to help Beebee-Eight.

“Where’d you get this ship, anyhow?” the strange man asks.

“The Niima Outpost,” Rey replies. “Unkar Plutt had it. He said he stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain…”

“…who stole it from me!” the man interjects, indignantly. “Well, when you get back there, you tell him Han Solo took back the _Millennium Falcon_ for good!”

Han Solo? The war hero? In his shock, Finn loses his grip on Beebee-Eight, and the both of them tumble to the floor. The droid lands heavily on his gut, forcing the air out of his lungs in a loud yelp. The hairy creature wail-laughs, but bends down to help Finn lift Beebee-Eight out of the manhole.

“This is the _Millennium Falcon_?” he can hear Rey ask, in the meantime. “You’re Han Solo?”

“I used to be.”

Finn manages to finally extricate himself and Beebee-Eight from the manhole, and stands up straight, only for Rey to round on him with an ecstatic grin. “This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs!” she says. Finn nods. He has no idea what she means, but it must be a hell of a feat to impress a pilot like her.

“Oh, good. A fan,” says Han, and he moves towards the cockpit access tunnel. “Chewie, throw ‘em in an escape pod. We’ll drop them at the nearest inhabited planet.”

“Wait, no!” Rey cries, outraged. “We need your help!”

“My help?” Han waves his hand, dismissively. Rey, Finn and the hairy creature (Chewie?) follow him, Beebee-Eight trundling along behind their feet.

“We have to get this droid back to the Resistance,” Rey explains. “She’s carrying a map to Luke Skywalker!”

Han Solo stops dead in his tracks. His back is still to them, but Finn can see the change in his demeanour even so. His shoulders relax, his hands unclench. Like some hard outer layer has crumbled away.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” asks Finn, softly. “The Han Solo that fought with the Rebellion. You knew Luke Skywalker.”

Han Solo half-turns his head. “Yeah, I knew him. I knew Luke.” He falls silent again, for another moment, before he draws in a fortifying breath. He turns to the group in the crew lounge. His eyes turn downwards, towards the little droid perched amongst a copse of legs. “Alright, Ball, let’s see what you got.”

Beebee-Eight swivels her head around to Rey, and the girl responds with an encouraging nod and a “go on. It’s okay.” Heartened, the little droid rolls into a position she deems suitable. Her holoprojector flickers into life. The image starts out relatively small, a little slice of space about the size and depth of a stormtrooper’s chest plate. Beebee-Eight rotates and magnifies the image, and soon it fills the whole crew lounge with projections of stars and systems, nebulae and asteroid fields, comets and supernovas, all frozen in a singular moment. Through the pictured expanse, a path is marked in gold, landing on one little planet in a binary system. The end of Skywalker’s journey through the cosmos.

Finn has studied star maps as a part of his training, though never one of this section of the galaxy. It quickly becomes apparent to him, however, that Rey has never seen anything like this before. She moves through the stellar image, examining the different systems, her eyes full of wonder and blue reflections. It is beautiful. He’d never been able to appreciate that during training.

Han, conversely, looks grim as he investigates the projection. “This is just a piece,” he says. “The map’s incomplete. Wonder where the rest of it is.”

“Do you recognise any of it?”

Han shakes his head. “Must be somewhere in the Unknown Regions. There are a lot of stories about Luke. When people don’t know the truth, they tend to make things up. Whole lotta hokum out there.”

“Do the stories say why he left?”

Han sighs. “That’s the one part they all agree on.” His voice is calm, but unmistakably forlorn. This is a personal tragedy, after all. “Luke was training a new generation of Jedi, thirteen of them. Then, it all went wrong. One young man turned against him. He destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible, and…he just walked away from everything.”

He looks around the star map again, his eyes landing on the end point of the golden path. “But those in the know say he set out looking for the first Jedi temple. I’ll bet this map leads there.”

“The Jedi were real?” Rey asks, reverently.

“As real as you or me, kid,” Han replies, warmth seeping into his tone. There’s a slight smile on his face. “I used to think it was all mumbo-jumbo. I mean, magical power holding the universe together? It _sounds_ like mumbo-jumbo.” Finn smirks. He’d be inclined to agree with that assessment, if he didn’t already know better. “Crazy thing is, it’s all true,” Han continues. “The Jedi, the Force…all of it. I know because I’ve seen it. With my own eyes.”

The group falls into awed silence. Finn has to hand it to Han; the man can hold an audience.

Finn is the one to break the silence. “We can’t let the First Order get this map,” he says. He’s certain of it, as certain as he has been of anything in his life. Even if Luke never travelled to the place the map would lead him, they can’t let the First Order learn the secrets of the Jedi.

“No, we can’t,” Han agrees. He turns and strides towards the cockpit, with the same deliberation. The star map retreats into nothing as Beebee-Eight deactivates her projector and follows him into the access tunnel. “Alright, if you want my help, you’ve got it. We’re gonna get you on a clean ship.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think it was a coincidence Chewie and I found you?” asks Han. “If we picked you up on our trackers, the First Order won’t be far behind. We’ll find you a new ship, make it harder for them.”

“What about the ship you came in?” says Rey.

“I didn’t exactly pay for it,” Han explains. “I was gonna ditch it on Jakku anyway. Might as well just cut it loose and let ‘em search for it.” He takes his place in the pilot’s seat, and reaches for the controls, but finds something wanting. “Some idiot put a compressor on the ignition line!”

“Plutt did that,” Rey explains. “I tried to tell him it was a mistake. It puts too much pressure on…”

“…the hyperdrive,” they say, in unison. Han appraises her, impressed and appreciative. Rey seems a little taken aback.

“Chewie,” Han says, eventually, “why don’t you take Finn and check the stores, see what we got? I wanna see what this one can do.” He nods to Rey as he says it.

Finn touches her bare shoulder. “You okay?”

Rey’s brow furrows, as if she doesn’t know quite how to answer. “…yeah. I can handle myself.”

Han Solo flicks a few switches, pushes a few levers. The engines rumble back to life as he fiddles with the hyperspace computer. “Let’s hope the compressor doesn’t screw too much with the hyperdrive,” Han grumbles. Finn is not at all happy about the possibility either. As Chewie leads him towards the cargo hold, Finn feels the _Millennium Falcon_ jolt and rattle as it shoots off through hyperspace.

* * *

All this time, Finn and Beebee-Eight have assumed that their friend, Poe Dameron, died in the crash on Jakku. A reasonable assumption, to be sure, but an incorrect one. In truth, Poe Dameron had regained consciousness with little time to level off the TIE and land it in almost one piece. He’d struggled out of the cockpit, losing his jacket in the process, and managed to stumble away from the wreck. Finally, he’d collapsed into the baking desert sand. Had he awoken earlier, he and Finn may even have been reunited.

Instead, Poe Dameron is roused an hour after Finn has already left, by the rumbling of a speeder’s engine. He’d been found by a traveller, a Blarina by the name of Naka Iit. He’d seen the TIE crash, and ridden out to see if there was anything worth scavenging. He’d come across Poe, instead. He offered the stranded pilot a ride to Cratertown, and Poe had wasted no time in accepting. He had been uneasy, at first, but he doubted that someone planning on taking a hostage would yammer on for several miles about his daughter’s small jewellery-making business. Poe had made a mental note to come back and look up Naka Osho, in the future.

Now, Poe stands in the marketplace of Cratertown, a mix of pop-up stalls and baked mud shopfronts. It looks as if the town proper was built around a mining complex. Several unlit cranes rise up out of the sand, leaning over a large crater, with chains dangling down into the abyss. The mine is inactive, but not decayed; work must have been shut down for the night. A circle of clear ground surrounds each crane, and beyond that is the town proper, with little houses made of clay and stone. Close to the crater, something like a shanty town has sprung up: a series of little shacks, constructed from scrap, rocks and pieces of cloth.

He turns back to Naka Iit, and waves. “Thank you, so much,” he says, to the jovial Blarina. “I’m with the Resistance, I’m sure they’ll compensate you.”

Naka Iit laughs raucously. “I’ll hold you to that, Poe Dameron!” he shouts. “I’ll walk right up to your base and ask for you by name!” Still roaring with laughter, the Blarina turns his swoop, and speeds off into the distance.

Now alone, Poe looks around at the little market. Many of the merchants are packing up their stalls, but a few are waving and calling to him. None of them appear to have any water, however, so Poe turns his attention to the buildings. The largest of them has a neon sign, still glowing dimly despite the obvious damage from cruel winds and endless sunlight. _Dex’s Diner._

“There really is one of these in every system, huh?” Poe says to himself, as he hurries through the door.

The inside of the diner is like a completely different world. Between the air conditioning, the shade, and the smell of greasy fast food, Poe feels as if he’s stepped into the lap of luxury. He practically runs up to the counter, drawing surprisingly bored looks from the other patrons, and thanks his lucky stars that there is no queue. A plump Pantoran waitress takes a moment to analyse him while she finishes wiping down a section of the polished metal. The name _Tamandani_ is embroidered onto her dress.

“You want a drink, honey?” she asks, gesturing with a generously sized metal jug and a pleasant smile. “Water’s free. Anything else you gotta pay for.”

He’s hungry enough to _eat_ Beebee-Eight when he finds her, but alas, he has no money. “Water’s fine. Please,” he adds. His stomach gives an outrageously noisy growl. He scowls down at it, as if it might feel guilty for selling him out.

Then a voice speaks from behind him. “Give him whatever he wants, Tam,” it says, warmly. “It’s on me.”

Poe turns around, searching for the source of the voice. There are a few people looking at him, but only one of them gives him a small wave and a smile. She’s a Twi’lek, or at least part Twi’lek, judging by the pair of head-tails draped over her shoulders. Green markings are scattered over her skin with a randomness that must be natural. She nods up at the menu, displayed above the counter.

“Uhh…I’ll have the Dex Double Decker,” Poe says, torn between satisfying his hunger and not wasting a stranger’s money by ordering everything on the menu. “Please. And just water to drink.”

“Same for me, please, Tam,” the woman says, from behind him.

Tamandani moves toward the kitchen, putting down her jug of water. Before Poe can stop himself, he grabs it with both hands and lifts it off the counter. Water spills over his face and shirt with the first gulp. He really ought to stop – this is so _rude_ – but all he can do is quaff mouthful after mouthful, with yet more draining down the sides of his face. Finally, he pulls the jug away from his lips with a gasp, and gingerly sets it back down on the counter.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, sheepishly.

“It’s not problem, honey,” Tamandani says, with the sort of grace that one only hears from a customer service employee that has seen just about everything at least once before. “Happens more than you’d think. Why don’t you go and sit down? I’ll bring your food over to your table.”

“You’re a treasure, Tam!” the woman calls from behind him, making the waitress blush.

Poe slides into the booth to sit opposite the stranger. She doesn’t have any food, but is instead drinking from a glass bottle of purple liquid. It occurs to Poe that strangers on desert planets don’t usually buy you dinner unless they want something. He’d been too hungry to care when he accepted her offer, but now the imminent arrival of food has lessened his desperation, and cleared his head enough for cynicism to move back in. There are a number of questions he wants to ask, but before he can decide on the first one, she speaks again.

“You look about as nervous as a long-tailed loth cat in a room full of astromechs.” The woman takes another generous gulp from her drink.

He doesn’t really have a response to that, so instead he asks a question. “Who are you?”

She holds out a hand for him to shake, and he takes it, after wiping his own hand on his shirt. “Dawn. Dawn Syndulla.”

“Poe Dameron,” he replies. And then does a double-take. “Wait, wait, wait. Syndulla? As in, Hera Syndulla?”

“Ah, you’ve heard of my mom.”

Poe’s mouth falls open. Hera Syndulla…she was a hero. More than a hero, she was a _legend_. He blinks, and suddenly realises he’d been staring. “Sorry, I just…I grew up on the stories, you know? The Mustafar raid, the Siege of Lothal, the Battle of Atollon…”

“No way! Me too!” she replies, and she laughs good-naturedly. She must get this a lot.

“So, what are you doing here?” Poe asks.

“I could ask you the same,” she replies. “I’ve heard of you, y’know. General Organa talks about you. She says you’re the best pilot in the Resistance.”

He blinks, a little taken aback. “You know General Organa?”

Dawn nods. “I work for her. I know the family.”

“But you’re not with the Resistance?” Poe asks.

She eyes him. She hadn’t missed the slight accusatory edge that had slipped into the question. “I guess you could call me an independent contractor,” she answers. Her tone is still casual, but there’s a deeper sadness behind it. One that Poe recognises, somewhere in the back of his soul. “There are some people I’m looking for. Family. General Organa wants to find some of those same people. When I’m in need, I go to her, and she helps me out.”

Poe wants to ask more, but he’s interrupted by Tamandani. His concentration snaps. He takes his burger and basket of fries, and starts piling food into his mouth.

“Thanks, Tam,” says Dawn.

“Fanksh, Tam,” Poe mumbles. He doesn’t see her leave, too busy chewing and swallowing. Dawn is silent for a moment, and Poe realises that the sorrow he heard in her voice might have welled up and spilled over. But no, she starts to laugh.

“That girl is _so_ into me,” she whispers to Poe, with a smirk.

His brow furrows. “How can you tell?”

Dawn opens up her burger, and takes out a little green something. He squints at it, and it’s a slice of gherkin. A slice of gherkin cut into the shape of a love-heart. “Gherkin flirting!” he gasps.

Dawn throws her head back and roars with laughter. “Gherkin flirting!” she repeats. “I like that!”

The laughter trails off, into comfortable silence. They seem to have bonded. Poe carries on eating. Dawn pops the slice of gherkin into her mouth, and winks at the waitress. For a second, they could almost be a couple of normal people.

After a few minutes, Poe remembers the conversation they’d been having, before his hunger was so gloriously sated. He swallows his current mouthful. “So, who are you looking for?” he asks.

She swallows her own mouthful of fries. “A few different people,” she explains. “Most of them from the Jedi Academy. A lot of them went missing, after that all went wrong. Some of them died. Others just…vanished. Master Skywalker, my cousin Seku, Ben…”

“To bring him to justice?” Poe interrupts. Dawn arches an eyebrow, looks at him with fury and wariness. He almost shrinks back, but he meets her gaze. “He destroyed the temple. The academy fell apart because of him.”

She glares at him a moment longer. “No, it didn’t,” she says, eventually. “I was there. I saw him. He left before the temple explosion. There was a storm…I don’t know how to explain it. But _he didn’t do it_. He…he tried to _save_ me. Why would he blow up the temple and then come back to help me?”

“Then, why do so many people think it was him?”

“Because that’s what Master Skywalker said,” she replies, a bitter note in her voice. “He told the story, and everyone else swallowed it down. It didn’t matter what I said. Who’d believe some traumatised hybrid girl over the great Luke Skywalker?”

Poe looks down at the sticky plastoid tabletop. He thinks of the little girl from his childhood, the girl he played and laughed with, the girl that got taken away. He remembers Ben calling him, years later, to tell him that he _was_ Ben. Poe had been so _proud_ of him. He remembers that Ben had shaved off all his hair. For some reason, that detail always sticks out. Maybe because of the little girl he used to be. Her hair was always perfectly braided. He thinks of that boy. Could he really have done everything the stories said?

Finally, Poe comes to a decision. “I would.”

Dawn scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

“No, I mean” – Poe reaches across the table, to lightly touch her arm – “I believe you.”

Dawn’s blue-green eyes meet his own in a scowl. She doesn’t trust him, and why should she? He’s a stranger to her. And he hasn’t exactly been sensitive about the topic. He holds her gaze, and slowly, her expression softens as she recognises his sincerity. She blinks a few times, surprised. Then she grins. A genuine, brilliant grin, one that Poe can’t help but return.

“I think I like you, Poe Dameron.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't take credit for the "gherkin flirting" joke; it was actually from a McDonald's advert. Still, I hope you guys like this chapter. I had to split it in two because it was so long, so hopefully that won't screw up the pacing too much. Let me know what you guys think!


	12. The Ghost and the Runaway

Dawn has inherited her mother’s ship. Poe hadn’t been expecting that; Hera Syndulla must only be in her sixties, hardly too old to fly. But there it is, a heavily modified VCX-100 light freighter, painted with yellow and orange flashes, set down in a small landing strip behind the town. The stars blinking into view in the darkening sky give it an appropriately mystical look. “This is the _Ghost_ ,” Poe says, in awe.

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” quips Dawn. She chuckles at his exasperated look, and claps his shoulder gamely. “Mom lent her to me, when I started working with the Resistance. She told me having a ship like this at your disposal could make all the difference.”

Poe nods. “I can see that.”

Dawn raises a wrist-mounted communicator to her lips. “Chopper, can you lower the entry ramp?”

A moment later, a familiar voice comes through. “Uhh…I think you’re using the wrong channel,” it says, nervously.

“Oh, whoops. Sorry, Tam. _Ma allesh_.” Dawn grimaces as she cuts off the communication. “Little awkward, there.”

“You gave the waitress your comm details?” asks Poe.

“What? You want me to ignore the gherkin flirting?” Poe is starting to regret making that pun. “Don’t worry, this is my personal comm. I have a separate one for Resistance communications.” Dawn fiddles with the gadget, giving it an open-palmed smack to finish, and activates it again. “Chopper. You there?”

“Chopper” replies loudly in warbling droidspeak. _Where have you been? You’ve been gone for hours! You said you were only going to the diner!_ “What are you? My mother?” Dawn protests. The droid rages on, unimpressed. “Can you just lower the entry ramp, please?”

Chopper grumbles, but ends the communication. The entry ramp cracks open with a quiet hiss, and lowers smoothly to rest on the sand. Poe looks inside to see a battered old astromech, a model that he doesn’t recognise. Its blue optical sensors land on him, and it unfolds a shock prod from its body, giving out what sounds like a war cry. It speeds down the ramp towards him. Poe almost trips over his own feet as he rushes backwards, but Dawn quickly steps between them.

“Chopper! Chopper, no! He’s with me, alright? He’s a friend.” The droid’s head swivels back and forth between them, but he finally decides to retract his shock prod and stand down. He grumbles about the First Order causing trouble, and how do you know this guy isn’t one of them? “Do you really think a stormtrooper would be out here looking like that? He doesn’t even have water.”

Chopper doesn’t appear to have an answer for that. He fixes Poe with one final suspicious glare, pointing to his optical lenses and then at Poe, before trundling away to attend to his business.

Dawn frowns. “He’s shaken up.” She shakes her head a little, and gestures Poe forward. “Come on.”

Poe ascends the entry ramp. He looks around at the forward cargo hold, a large and well-lit room with a high, arched ceiling. A yellow ladder against the left-hand wall leads to a mezzanine above his head, and then further up through the ceiling. The walls and floor are light grey metal, decorated with yellow and blue flashes. The wall at the back of the room is actually a large set of hydraulic doors, no doubt leading to another storage area.

“You never answered my question,” Poe says. “What are you doing on Jakku?”

“Oh, just picking up some mineral shipments, boring stuff,” she answers, gesturing vaguely at a few piles of crates. “Oh, and I ordered some jewellery the last time I was here.” She flashes a pretty little bracelet on the wrist without the comm, made of polished metal and sanded shards of glass.

“Naka Osho?” he blurts.

She blinks in surprise. “Yeah. How’d you know that?”

“I met her dad,” he replies. “He picked me up, after I crashed.”

Dawn smiles. “Jakku’s a small world, after all. So what about you? You never answered that question either.”

Poe hesitates, but only for a moment. She’s already working for the Resistance, and the First Order will know about the map by now, anyway. What harm could there be in telling her? “General Organa sent me to retrieve some information from a contact. He gave me a map, to where Luke Skywalker is hiding.”

“Seriously?” Dawn blurts. She hurries for the ladder. “I’ll boot up the nav computer, we’ll…”

“It’s with my droid,” Poe interrupts. Dawn’s face falls, and her hand freezes on the side rail. He comes to stand on the opposite side of the ladder. Less than a metre from her, under the strong lights of the cargo hold, Poe can see the tell-tale pink and puckered skin of a burn scar spread across her chin, the back of her cheek and the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry. I gave it to her, so the First Order wouldn’t get it when they captured me.”

“They captured you? How’d you get away?” she asks.

“There was this stormtrooper, Finn. He helped me escape.” He hedges again, unsure if he should tell her the whole truth. If she starts to suspect him of being a double-agent, she’ll leave him on Jakku, at best, and kill him at worst. But Dawn had been honest with him, despite what he might have thought. He decides that she deserves the same courtesy. “Him and Kylo Ren.”

Dawn, utterly scandalised, heaves in a long, deep gasp. “Shut. Your. _Ass_.”

Poe has no idea how to respond to that, but Dawn speaks again before he has to. “So, where are they? Do we need to go pick ‘em up?”

“I…don’t know,” he replies, honestly. “I lost Finn in the crash. Kylo Ren shot us down. He might have double-crossed us, but…no, there was something else. Something wasn’t _right_ about it.”

“ _Is_ there a right way to double-cross someone?” she responds. He smirks, but shakes his head.

“No, I mean…” He realises that he doesn’t know how to explain what had happened. The crash had happened so fast, and there had been so much panic; it takes him a moment to remember all the details. “We were getting away. I said I needed to go back for Beebee-Eight – that’s my droid – and Kylo Ren was yelling, and then his voice cut off. Right in the middle of a word. I suppose something could have gone wrong with the communication, but I could hear something over the system. Like… _coughing_ , or something. That’s when the _Supremacy_ arrived. And after that, Kylo Ren shot us down.”

At some point during the story, Dawn had turned her head slightly to stare at the wall. Poe has no doubt that she’s been listening to every word. Brow furrowed, her eyes flicker back and forth as she analyses everything he’d said. Finally, she meets his gaze again, looking thoroughly disturbed.

“Was he choking?” she asks. “Kylo Ren, I mean. When he was cut off.”

“I’m not sure. He could have been.” It hadn’t come to mind at the time, but thinking back on those stuttering coughs and gasps, they’d sounded _exactly_ like someone choking. Could there have been someone else in the _Silencer_?

Dawn’s face is grim, sombre. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it,” she says, perhaps to herself. The knuckles of the hand gripping the ladder are almost white. “There are a lot of ways to use the Force. Most of them are…neutral. I could use the Force to lift you up, if you were falling from a height, or I could use the same technique to pick you up and throw you against a wall. That depends on the person, not on the technique itself. Make sense?” Poe nods an affirmative, shaking off the slight perturbation that had come with the information that Dawn could hurt him with very little effort. She hasn’t done so yet, and he doubts she’s about to start now. “There are some ways to use the Force that only hurt. And one of those is Force choking.”

Poe rubs his neck. “So, you think someone attacked him?”

“You said the _Supremacy_ turned up right after things went wrong, right?” Dawn replies. “If Snoke was on board, he could have done it. And if he could do that…” She trails off, biting her lip, but Poe already has an inkling of what she might be about to say. “Maybe that was enough to make Kylo Ren change his mind. Or maybe he _didn’t_ double-cross you after all.”

Another long silence comes over the pair, but unlike the pause in conversation in the diner, this silence is tense and frightened. It’s hard to shake the image of Kylo Ren, fearsome in his cowl and mask, clawing at the intangible grip encircling his throat, struggling for every breath. If Snoke could do that from somewhere light years away, what else could he do?

Chopper breaks the silence. He grumbles something disgusting enough to make Poe wish he’d never learned droidspeak. Dawn makes an odd noise of outrage. “Chopper! That is so inappropriate! You have a _filthy_ mind for a droid, you know that?” She punctuates the scolding with a sharp kick to the droid’s cylindrical body. Chopper barks out a sound like a raunchy laugh. Dawn rolls her eyes. Abandoning her attempt at discipline, she lifts herself onto the ladder. “Come on, we’d better get back to the Base. General Organa might have some answers for us.”

Poe follows her, fixing his eyes dutifully on the rungs. “It’s in the Ilee…”

“I know where it is!” she shouts down. _Of course she knows_ , he scolds himself.

The ladder leads into the cockpit. It’s like Poe is stepping into one of the stories he’d heard as a child, or during his training at the New Republic Defence Academy; this is where they all took place. He looks around in awe, feeling like he’s shrunk to half his normal size. His gaze eventually falls on Dawn, who has already taken her place in the pilot’s seat. Poe moves to the seat beside her, half-expecting her to laugh and shoo him away from it. She doesn’t. Instead, she begins preparing the _Ghost_ for launch.

“Chopper, man the dorsal turret,” she calls, over her shoulder. The droid squawks an affirmative reply as the engines rumble to life. “Poe, I’m giving you control of the forward turret. The Phantom is through the doors, along the corridor as far as you can go. I might need you to man its guns if they come up behind.”

“Right.” He shifts the controls slightly from side to side, gauging their sensitivity. The _Ghost_ jolts underneath him, and his stomach leaps as they take off. He can’t help but grin. The sensation is as familiar and comforting to him as a mother’s arms are to a child. This is his home. He looks over at Dawn, to see the same beam plastered on her face. The blue of the sky turns navy, and then gives way to black, dotted with stars.

The exit from the atmosphere also brings the First Order’s fleet into clear view. The _Supremacy_ floats above the planet, like a grotesque second moon. There are only one or two Star Destroyers, but that hardly seems to matter in the face of the massive flagship. “Can we evade them?” Poe asks.

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” Dawn replies. “Look at that.”

The _Supremacy_ turns, slowly, one arm making a sweeping arc over the smaller ships in the fleet. The giant shadow passes over each of them. Then, one by one, the ships disappear into hyperspace.

Poe and Dawn exchange looks. “That’s not good,” he says.

“No, it’s not,” she agrees. She taps away at the _Ghost’s_ own hyperspace computer. “We need to get back to the Resistance.”

As he watches the stars streak across the cockpit windows, Poe hopes that Beebee-Eight got away. But then, why would the First Order leave if they hadn’t found what they’d been looking for?

* * *

The dream is always the same.

It starts with floating rocks. Tiny snowflakes dance in front of her eyes, almost too small for her to see. She feels the rock under her feet, the grit between her toes. Before her, there is a cave, a narrow opening in a rockface. She walks forward, through the gap, and the cavern opens up around her. It’s huge, and almost pitch dark, but the Force calls her onward. She drops onto all fours, and runs. She runs through vast subterrane halls of blood-coloured crystal, and leaps over sheer drops, and crawls through tight, grey tunnels with her belly scraping the floor. These features are always present, though not always in the same order. Then she hits something, and she startles awake.

Seku, now alert, emerges from her tent. There is no cave or crystal, just a gorgeous, emerald forest, spreading around her in all directions. This planet has no moons, but the navy sky is brimming with stars and stained with measureless celestial clouds. Seku draws in a deep breath, looking up at that wondrous sky, and slowly, she starts to feel calm once again.

Her campfire hasn’t yet burned out, but it has grown far too dim to see by, so she switches on the lantern hung on a pole beside her tent. The sphere of white light illuminates the surrounding trees, and the creatures lazing atop their thicker branches. The few locals Seku has spoken to call them “ysalamiri.” To the untrained eye, they look mostly like ordinary lizards, with ochre scales, clawed feet and thick, prehensile tails. The only unusual things about their appearance are their protruding ears, and their two pairs of beady eyes. Their most amazing feature cannot be seen, but it can be felt. The ysalamiri have the power to block out the Force. Despite the bird calls and the rustling leaves, this might be the quietest forest in the galaxy.

There are many ysalamiri in this forest, and she’s observed a lot about them. Seku has only seen them come to the ground to lay their eggs among the roots, and to beg her for food, which is what one little fellow seems to be doing. He has a warped forelimb that makes it difficult for him to climb, but he climbs down the tree trunk to her anyway. She picks through her berry pouch, carefully selecting the juiciest one she has.

“Here you are, Nero. Good boy.” She offers it on an outstretched palm, and he snaps it up with great enthusiasm. They rather enjoy eating fruit, she’s found. Once he’s finished, he looks back up at her, expectantly. But then, his eyes fall on something else. Something above Seku. He startles, and scrambles off back up the tree, as fast as he can. Her head whips around to follow his gaze.

The stars are moving.

All the hairs on Seku’s body stand on end. She drops close to the ground, her functioning eye following the moving lights as best it can. The longer she watches, the clearer it becomes to her that they are not actually stars. They’re much nearer, some of them barely glancing the canopy as they bob and weave through the air. What’s more, the light they emit is not the white light of a distant star, but closer to the soft, golden glow of candlelight. They swoop in a vertical arc towards the trees, and then up and away to the east.

She grabs her pack, and follows them. So intent is she on her task, that she does not notice the increasingly larger gaps in the canopy, the thinning of the trees. The ysalamiri watch her pass, fewer and fewer with each metre she runs. She realises in time, that the whole dome of the sky is ahead of her, and she skids to a halt. Her toes dig into the soft mud. The forest ends here.

Before her is a wide meadow, with yellow and white flowers spread among the short grass. Beyond it is Takodana, then the galaxy, and further still, the whole universe. Before Seku lies the Force.

The ysalamiri’s influence is already weak here; if she goes any further, she will be at the Force’s mercy once again. The lights in the sky are meant to be followed, but to follow them back out there? She’d had nothing but _herself_ in her mind for so long. She’d forgotten how to cope with the feelings of others brushing against her own; the flashes of the past and of the future; the feeling of the lifeblood of the universe pulsing in her veins. She’d forgotten how to _be_. Can she ever remember?

_Do or do not. Do or do not._

She steps forward, and the universe returns to her.

It should be overwhelming, but it isn’t. More like stepping back into a childhood home; so much has changed, and so much is new, but she’d known it so well once and her heart remembers all she feared she had forgotten. She had known the Force from the moment she was born to the moment she had sealed herself away from it. The murmurings of the galaxy are as familiar to her as her own soul.

It takes her a second to remember why she had returned. She looks up, and the lights are still there. Gradually, they descend to her height, dancing around her like a swarm of fireflies, bathing her in their golden light. Has she ever before felt such _wonder_? And then, they whisper. Too quiet, even with her acute hearing, for her to make out words, but they hum with countless voices. Some she recognises, others she doesn’t. None are discernible.

Maybe, then, she must listen in a different way.

It has been so long, but she’d realised in her return, that the Force is something she cannot forget. Not completely, not irrevocably. She closes her eyes, and reaches out. The sounds of the forest drift away, and Seku is left with silence, and the whispers.

“What are you trying to say?” she asks.

The voices speak, not in unison, but in tandem.

_Ben Solo._

_Ben Solo is alive._

_Find him! Find him!_

Seku shakes her head, chest aching in her anguish. “No. No, that’s not true. I can’t feel him anymore.” And she always had, close but never quite touching, since the moment they’d first shaken hands all those years ago. There is nothing of him now. Not even a glimmer.

_Hidden, he is._

Her ear twitches. “Hidden?” Could it be true? “By what?”

_Shrouded in darkness._

_We cannot reach._

_So alone…so much pain…_

_Find him._ GO!

Sharp pain stabs her head. It drowns out all else. She falls forward into the grass, collapsing in a heap. The sounds of the forest gradually return; the wind rustling in the leaves, the buzzing and chirping of insects, the calls of nocturnal birds. After a moment, she pushes herself up, and gets to her feet. She shakes the dirt out of her fur.

The lights are gone, now, but a few metres away, barely visible in the sunrise, is a figure. Tall, human, and not-quite-glowing, like a light that has just been turned off. She can see all of him. He looks just the same as he did in her earliest memories.

“Uncle Kanan?”

Kanan Jarrus does not speak. But he smiles, and in that smile is everything he could ever say. Her breath catches in her chest. And then, like waves crashing on a shore, the vision ebbs away.

Hundreds of light years away, on the planet Lothal, Kanan Jarrus wakes with a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hey, hey! This is basically the second part of the previous chapter, which is why I managed to get it finished so quickly; it was already halfway done! I hope you all enjoy, and let me know what you think.


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